


















































































































- 








































































David V. Bush 




















APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


AND 

SCIENTIFIC LIVING 


ONE IN A SERIES OF BOOKS ON THE 
FUNDAMENTALS OF PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
COVERING THE FIELD OF SUCCESS. 
HEALTH AND HAPPINESS 


BY 


DAVID Vr BUSH 




EDITOR OF MIND POWER PLUS 
AUTHOR OF 

PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY AND SEX LIFE. ETC. 


VOLUME I 


DAVID V. BUSH. PUBLISHER 
225 North Michigan Blvd CHICAGO. ILL. 





Copyright, 1922 
Copyright, 1923 

DAVID V. BUSH 


Printed by the 

W. S. Donaldson Prtg. and Litho. Co. 
Cass at Ninth 
St. Louis, Mo. 

FFR 1 8 *24 

©C1A777585 


I 




DEDICATION 

To the countless thousands of good people who have 
heard these lectures and who have contributed, by their 
presence, enthusiasm, and encouragement, to the success 
of my many great campaigns in theaters, amphitheaters, 
arenas, and auditoriums, giving me the inspiration 
without which no speaker can do his best; thus being 
co-laborers with me in carrying the message of Applied 
Psychology and Scientific Living to the multitudes 
throughout the world, this book is most gratefully and 
affectionately dedicated. 


—DAVID V. BUSH. 


WORKS 

of 

DAVID V. BUSH 



Cloth 

Novelette 

Character Analysis — How to Read 

People at Sight. 

Inspirational Poems .. 

$7.50 

1.75 

$2.50 

Poems of Mastery and Love Verse. 

1.50 

2.25 

Soul Poems and Love Lyrics. 

1.50 

2.25 

Grit and Gumption.....paper, 50c 

1.00' 

1.25 

The Universality of the Master Mind, 
paper, 50c... 

1.00 



FUNDAMENTALS OF PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

A series of books on the Fundamentals of Practical 
Psychology, covering the held of Success, Health, and 
Happiness. The list of books in this series which are 
now ready and in process of preparation, follows: 

Volume Cloth 

I. Applied Psychology and Scientific Living....$ 3.50 

II. The Psychology of Success. 2.50 

III. Practical Psychology and Sex Life. 25.00 

IV. The Psychology of Sex—How to Make Love 

and Marry—Sex Harmony. 3.50 

V. The Psychology of Emotion—How to Analyse 

Yourself and Others. 2.50 

VI. Psychoanalysis—How to Tap the Power of 

the Mind . 2.50 

VII. Other Methods of Healing: For Practitioner 

and Patient . 2.50 

VIII. How to Be Well. 2.50 

IX. Mental Telepathy and Vibration. 1.00 

X. The Psychology of Immortality. 1.00 

DAVID V. BTJISH, Publisher 
225 North Michigan Blvd. Chicago, Ill. 

























CONTENTS 


Chapter Page 

I. What is God?. 15 

II. The Subconscious Mind. 38 

Genius. 

III. The Subconscious Mind—continued. 54 

Prodigies—Original Knowledge—Universal Mind. 

IV. The Subconscious Mind—continued. 62 

Different Degrees in Animal and Man. 

V. The Subconscious Mind—continued. 83 

Different Degrees and Planes. 

VI. The Subconscious Mind—continued. 94 

Other Names for the Subconscious—What it is— 
Where it is—Soul Immortal. 

VII. The Subconscious Mind—continued. 109 

Its Many Functions—How it Works—Intuition-— 
Memory—Psychoanalysis and the Subconscious. 

VIII. The Psychological Law of Suggestion. 143 

How the Subconscious Receives Suggestion— 
Subconscious does not Question as to Right or 
Wrong—The part Suggestion Plays in Making us 
What we are—Suggestion used in Self-Develop¬ 
ment. 

IX. The Psychological Law of Suggestion—continued.. 166 
How the Subconscious may Receive Wrong Sug¬ 
gestions and Work Harm—Changing Wrong Sug¬ 
gestions and Replacing with Good—-Insanity: 
Cause and Cure by Suggestion—Defectives— 
Lasting Effects of Suggestion Received in Early 
Childhood. 










8 


CONTENTS 


Chapter Pa S e 

X. The Psychological Law of Suggestion—continued- 189 
How to Use Autosuggestion—Suggestion as 
Mental Medicine—Universal use of Suggestion— 
Effects of Suggestion Permanent—Educating the 
Subconscious in its Relation to Suggestion. 

XI. Applied Psychology . 218 

What it is—What it Can Do. 

XII. What is Love? How to Keep It. 252 

Love is King—How to Use Love to Win What 
You Desire—How to Overcome Failure and 
Environment—How to Change Your Position. 

XIII. Vibration . 282 

The Greatest Law in the Universe—Just Lately 
Understood—What it is and How To Use it for 
Your Immediate Success and Health—The Pre¬ 
vention and Cure of Worry. 


XIV. Visualization—Imagination . 302 

Imagination in Visualization—Making Your 
Dreams Come True. 

XV. Fear—Man’s Worst Enemy. 327 

Man’s Worst Enemy—Where Fear First Came 
From and How It Can Be Eliminated. 

XVI. Poverty a Disease. 354 

Cure of Poverty—How to Double Your Efficiency. 

XVII. The Law of Abundance. 371 

How to Connect up with Abundance— How to 
Have Abundance NOW. 

XVIII. The Law of Abundance—continued... 379 

Practicing Abundance in a “Boom Town/’ on 
the Prairies. 










CONTENTS 


9 


Chapter Page 

XIX. The Law of Abundance—continued. 396 

How to Think for Abundance. 

XX. How to Be Beautiful. 402 

How to Develop Personality—How to Be Popular. 

XXI. The Chemistry of Emotion. 436 


Chemistry of Emotion—Its Physiological and 
Psychological Effects. 

How Your Thought Power Brings Success, 
Friends, Prosperity and Health. 


XXII. The Chemistry of Emotion—continued. 448 

Thought Seed Sowing—How to Prevent a Harvest 
of Thought Weeds. 

XXin. Life’s Greatest Bet. 468 

What the World Owes You and How to Get It. 
Life’s Greatest Bet—Scientific Thinking. 

XXIV. Smile—Smile—Smile . 502 












PREFACE 


In my ministerial life and in my public speaking, I 
have had a cast-iron rule that seldom has been broken; 
namely, that each time I delivered a sermon or an ad¬ 
dress, I would give the very best that was in me. I 
followed this rule strictly for many years. It still is my 
ambition, each time I have the privilege of standing 
before an audience, to be in such physical and mental 
trim that I give the best that is in me, at that time. 

In the preparation and the writing of this book, I 
have not been able to observe this rule. It has been 
simply impossible for me to give the time necessary to 
prepare this book as I should like to see it, from a literary 
standpoint. The demands upon my time, strength, and 
energy, during my great campaigns, together with the 
great need for this book to be placed in the hands of 
the public, and especially of those who have heard my 
lectures, have driven me beyond my depth. If therefore, 
I seem to have sacrificed literary style and finish, the 
sacrifice has been in the interest of making available 
without delay the truths herein presented. The book 
will be read, and its precepts practiced in the same spirit 
in which we write it—for the* greatest amount of good 
and service which we are able to apply to ourselves and 
to render to others and to the world. 

This book contains many of the lectures which I have 
given in the theaters, amphitheaters, and arenas, in 
many of the great cities of the world, preceding my 


12 


PREFACE 


advanced course classes in Applied Psychology and 
Scientific Living, and in Healing. The multitudes of 
people who have heard these lectures, and who will profit 
by reading them, as well as those readers who have 
never heard the sound of the author’s voice, will, I am 
sure, greatly benefit by an understanding and applica¬ 
tion of the laws herein given; therefore, the literary 
style, as these pages are read, will be of no consideration. 

In order to set before the student a comprehensive 
and concise statement of the theories and principles of 
psychology as discovered, proved, and enunciated by the 
best authorities, the author has, in many instances, 
quoted these wonderful men and women word for word, 
and takes delight in passing on the exact expressions 
of these great exponents of truth and light. 

It has been 1 my great joy to contribute many mental 
children of my own thinking and practice; but, as we 
are all heirs of the great ages past, I claim but little orig¬ 
inality in these thoughts; for this great movement of 
Psychology, New Thought, Truth, or whatever we may 
term the Mental Science which is gripping the world 
in this generation, is based upon truths brought to light 
in the centuries that are gone. 

To the discoveries and theories of the philosophers and 
teachers of the past, I have tried to add much from 
scientific, physiological, and psychological research and 
experimentation of our own day. This makes Applied 
Psychology and Scientific Living the very latest scien¬ 
tific, logical, physiological, and psychological text-book 
for students and for seekers after the Truth for the 
New Life. 



PREFACE 


13 


The following letter, which speaks for itself, is from 
the great plant wizard, Luther Burbank, whose vision, 
whose ambition to serve mankind by making the most 
of the great talent God gave him, whose unselfish devo¬ 
tion to his chosen work, and whose spirit of keeping 
everlastingly at it, have been a great inspiration to the 
author: 

Dear Doctor Bush: 

“Will Power and Success” (The Psychology of Success), 
“Applied Psychology and Scientific Living,” and “Grit and 
Gumption” appear to me to be the most practical and useful 
works which have been published on these and similar subjects. 
By a perusal of these books, all people, young and old, will have 
their backbones strengthened, will take a new interest in life, 
will make better citizens, and will be improved in every way. 
There can be no possible doubt of this, and best of all, you 
bring in illustrations and samples abundantly to prove your 
statements. 

I am glad that you have placed these psychological matters 
on such a firm foundation. 

May your shadow never grow less. 

Faithfully yours, 

(Signed) LUTHER BURBANK. 

Santa Rosa, Calif. 

April 8, 1922. 

The author of this book acknowledges with much 
gratitude many such expressions as to the value of his 
teaching; it is from such appreciation of his efforts 
that he receives the courage, the determination, and the 
strength to go on. 


—DAVID V. BUSH. 










APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY AND 
SCIENTIFIC LIVING 


CHAPTER I 


WHAT IS GOD? 


As the shores of time are strewn with the wrecks 
of loves and hopes, so have the waves of time washed 
away many old ideas of God and ushered in the new. 

A little girl who was trying to draw a picture of 
God was observed in the act by her mother, who asked 
what she was doing, and the little girl said, “Why, I 
am drawing a picture of God.” The mother said, 
“Why, dearie, no one knows what God is like.” “Oh! 
don’t they?” said she. “Well, they will when I am 
through.” 

Through the centuries we have had different concep¬ 
tions of God, and it is most interesting to look through a 
religious encyclopedia and see how the Christian Church, 
for instance, has, century after century, changed its 
theological interpretation of God. 

What the church has considered God in one century, 
t has disowned in the next; and yet each theological 
enthusiast thought that he had given the final concep- 
;ion of God. But had he lived for another hundred 
rears, he would have found that some other theological 
pant had been able to start a school which offset his, 





16 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


to be superseded in turn, in the next century by an¬ 
other. 

Thomas Tupper says: “Some time ago the editor of 
a certain paper wrote an editorial about the house fly 
as a pest. With the article appeared an enlarged pic¬ 
ture of a fly's foot—perhaps five hundred times asi large 
as the fly itself. As I read this editorial, a fly lit on 
the paper and began to crawl over the picture of the 
fly's foot. Did it realize that it was walking on a pic¬ 
ture of a part of its own anatomy ? 

“The fact is that the paper, the picture, the editorial, 
the brain that conceived the editorial, the machinery 
that put the paper into the readers' hands—all em¬ 
ployed to speak the truth about a fly’s foot—represent 
a form of life so far above the fly itself that even when 
the fly crawled over the picture it did not know of 
them." 

We are probably crawling over the earth in more or 
less the same way. That is, like the fly, we conceive our 
own world, but not the realm of lofty intelligence that 
surrounds us and comprehends us as we comprehend 
the fly. 

To change the picture, we are, each of us, like a bay 
of the great ocean, depending on it for the force of its 
water; the life of its tide-throb. 

It is as natural for the soul to seek God as it is for 
the swallow to seek her nest, and in that quest we try 
to picture God. 

The Scriptures tell us that God created man in His 
own image. In His own image created He him. An d 
man was created in the image of God. God breathed 


WHAT IS GOD? 


17 


into him a living; spirit. Man is spirit, we believe now; 
but just what that image meant in Genesis, above 
quoted, and just what the spirit is within man, have been 
the subject of speculation by theologians throughout 
the centuries. 

And just what that image and spirit are we have been 
speculating about ever since. 

The woman who said that she believed absolutely in 
God, so long as she did not attempt to define Him, also 
hit upon a great fact in experience. Those who hold 
that nothing should be believed which cannot be defined, 
shut out from faith the larger part of the greater and 
more influential things in life. Most things that are 
formal and provisional can be defined; nothing that is 
vital and eternal can be defined. This great fact was 
understood when the second commandment was formu¬ 
lated. 

Every living human being in the world today is an 
illustration of life; but there is not one final definition 
of life. 

Life is vital, but we cannot define it. God is, but He 
has never been defined so that our finite minds can fully 
understand, much less comprehend. 

Just what is that Spirit? Christ has given us the 
clearest conception when He says that God is love. We 
can understand love, although we cannot understand 
God. If we cannot define God we can experience Him. 

The old idea of God was that He was seated upon a 
throne on one great star in the center of the universe, 
surrounded by planets, moons, stars, etc. 


18 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


The new idea is not that some super-eminent star 
stands for the chosen abode of the Ruler of the Uni¬ 
verse. On gravitational grounds, we now think that 
there is no single huge controlling body, but that there 
is a center of gravity around which the entire stellar 
system is symmetrically arranged. 

The modern conception of astronomy holds that it is 
at least three hundred and eighty thousand millions of 
miles from the circumference to the center of the 
universe. 

Around the center rotate one thousand million stars 
in swarms, in streams, in scattered groups, following 
dynamic lines in symmetric assemblages. No telescope 
or photograph can reveal anything of the person or the 
abode of the Supreme Intelligence that ordered it all. 

Terry Walter, M. D., a noted scientist, gives the 
human mind some idea of the immensity of the uni¬ 
verse in the following words: 

“The unimaginable immensity and the tremendous forces 
of the universe suggest the infinity arid the power of mind. 
It would take 48,000,000 of years, going at the rate of 60 
miles an hour, traveling night and day, to reach Alpha Cen- 
tauri, the nearest fixed star; the energy required to turn the 
moon upon it axis is 50,000,000 times as great as that required 
to drive the largest steamer across the Atlantic; and the 
force required to turn the earth on its axis once a day is 
800,000 times that required to turn the moon. So we recog¬ 
nize the vast universe, the wonder of the heavens, and the 
marvel of the molecule, one forty-millionth of an inch in 
diameter, and the leavening power of a smile—who or what 
is behind all? Mind, the All Mind, God Spirit.” 


WHAT IS GOD? 


19 


As science brought these facts to light, we were forced 
to alter our conception of Deity as being fashioned 
physically like man, as being a person like man, only 
with bigger hands, extraordinary eyes, large feet, sit¬ 
ting in the center of the heavens on a throne of ivory 
with His lower extremities resting on the earth—a 
golden footstool. 

It degrades God in the mind and imagination of men 
to limit Him to forms of matter. 

Shakespeare’s witches are charming; but when they 
are acted by persons, they are ridiculous. 

To think of God as Spirit and Love is wholesome, but 
to try to reduce Him to a figure like man is preposterous. 

We can only liken God, if we must have an image of 
Him, to something that we have already seen in life or 
in pictures. In fact, pictures are all fashioned after 
some object which man has seen. 

Try to picture the shape and form of people living on 
Mars and what have we? A distorted image, fashioned 
after man. We cannot conceive of any being without 
its having some of the form and shape of other beings 
which we have seen. 

Give a scientist a bone of some antiquated animal like 
the mastodon which has lived long before man tilled 
the soil, and what kind of an animal does he produce? 
An animal which has some of the features, lines, legs, 
eyes, etc., of other animals which man has seen. 

God must be unlike anything which man has ever 
seen, for God is spirit. Man has not seen this spirit— 
God— a t any time, yet we picture Him as a great per- 


20 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


sonality and so offer our oblations and say, “This is 
the God which brought us up out of the land of bond¬ 
age, the land of Egypt.” 

We err when we try to depict the form and features 
of God. The Hebrew Scriptures do not attempt it, but 
Christians do. 

Isaiah, John, the apocalyptic writer, and Daniel try 
to give some conception of God, but it is only “Sub¬ 
lime indefiniteness. ’’ At their best they are only sym¬ 
bols playing on the imagination. 

When they are reduced to a definite form, they not 
only lose their beauty, but become grotesque. How 
absurd is the picture of a lamb, as described by John, 
with seven eyes and ten horns, holding something in his 
split foot which resembles a head. 

Where the Scriptures are silent, man ought to be 
modest enough to be silent likewise. But although 
silence is golden, man has not always been golden. 

Christ came the nearest to giving us a conception by 
which we can fathom God. He did not try to define 
God or to picture Him, but to “reveal’’ the Father. 

If we know God as a companion, a guide, a help in 
time of storm, a comforter in days of sorrow, a friend 
in stress and fatigue, we should be satisfied, without 
lowering His Divine nature by vain pictures and 
caricatures. 

As Charles Kingsley, the great preacher, lay dying 
he was heard to say that “God is very beautiful.’’ 
That is what we should hold in mind. 


WHAT IS GOD? 


21 


God is beautiful; but who can define or describe God, 
the Beautiful? 


WHAT IS GOD? 

The God I love, to man is shown 
As spirit, tri \ and kindly care, 

Whose lavish han 1 for all His own 
Is manifested e uywhere. 

He is my Father, mild but strong, 

A counselor of boundless might, 

Who heals the sick, forgives the wrong, 

And makes the heavy heart grow light. 

My God is Spirit, pulsing Life, 

Whose vast creating watchful power 

Solves every knot in time of strife 
And comforts in the darkest hour. 

My God is Friend, Companion, Guide, 

Who at His duty never sleeps; 

Who’s always present at my side, 

And lovingly His vigil keeps. 

But not for me alone He cares, 

Or for my nation or my clan; 

The Life Celestial that He shares 
Is linked with every mortal man! 

—From Inspirational Poems, by the author. 

An old proverb says that man is the noblest work 
of God; but with reverence it may be added that God 
is the noblest work of man. In the large sense, every 


22 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


man must paint his own picture of Deity. All nature 
is a palette, all beautiful events and scenes are pigments, 
and each man, according to his gifts, paints his picture 
of God. No two men ever had the same conception 
of the Unseen One, because no two men have exactly 
the same eyes, the same intellect or the same horizon and 
circumstances. 

In our effort to explain God, how many times we 
have misunderstood Him and how many times we have 
misrepresented Him! 

There came to the city of Florence a stranger. He 
lived his life there with but few friends. As he made 
money he seemed to shun humanity. He did not mingle 
with others. He did not 'spend his money; the city 
considered him a gross miser; so he came, lived and 
died a stranger, without friends, without love. 

Upon his death the will was read, which startled all 
of Florence and brought tears to nearly every eye. This 
man had lived a most sacrificial life, saved every penny 
he could get, going without the necessities of life for 
himself that he might leave enough money, upon his 
death, to bring fresh water to the Florentines. They 
had suffered for the want of fresh water. Contagion 
after contagion had swept the city, and in the bigness 
of this man’s heart he had promised himself to live 
sober, saving and sacrificing, so that he could give 
Florence the needed water supply. His will contained 
the glad news that his fortune was to be spent to build 
a viaduct leading from the fresh springs and streams of 
the mountains down to the city of Florence. Then 


WHAT IS GOD? 


23 


shame overwhelmed the people who had misunderstood 
their benefactor. 

Sometimes we misunderstand God because of our 
theological teaching, or in experiences of sorrow and dis¬ 
appointment, and think him deaf, dumb and as adamant 
to our cries and supplications, when really God is spirit 
—a spirit of love, a Being, beautiful—and that spirit is 
with man—you. 

What awful things we have attributed to God in our 
misunderstanding of His character and attributes! 

Washington Gladden became an international celeb¬ 
rity and pulpiteer. He was one of the great intellectual 
giants of his generation and has done an infinite amount 
of good by bringing light into darkness in theological 
places. When he was a boy he attended one of those 
old-fashioned typical hellfire-and-brimstone revival 
meetings in which the evangelist railed against every¬ 
thing that could be couched in the term of love and de¬ 
clared that God was a God of “ Justice” and that, be¬ 
cause God was a just God, He could not be true to 
Himself and the children of His creation unless He 
damned the greater number of men born for disobeying 
the man-made, theological rules for getting into the 
Kingdom of Heaven. It was declared that, because God 
is a God of “ Justice,’’ He had to damn His own creation. 

That evangelist’s misconception of God, miscalled a 
a God of “Justice,” set poor young Gladden to think¬ 
ing. At first he pictured himself in hell writhing in pain 
and agony because he had not had the same kind of a 
conversion that the preacher talked about, then his 
soul revolted at such a tyrannical Creator, from the 


24 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


revulsion of his soul, he became heart-sick and gave up 
the notion of becoming a preacher, which he had so 
hopefully cherished; until he thought the thing through, 
when he finally made this expression: “That men 
should be judged and doomed before they were born; 
that men should be blameworthy and punishable for 
what was done by their ancestors; that justice could be 
secured by the punishment of one for the sin of an¬ 
other, are propositions unthinkable. ’ ’ 

By the leadership of Robertson and Bushnell, he 
finally got his feet back firmly on spiritual terra firma, 
by staking his belief and faith on God, who made the 
earth, by knowing “the Judge of the earth would do 
right. ’ y 

Early Hebrews said, “He is a God of war, who has 
drowned the enemy in the sea.” Joshua and Elijah 
gloated in glee when their God turned the tide of battle 
against the enemy and they conquered in loot, blood, 
rape, and gore. 

The Church of the Middle Ages made Him a God to 
slay all who did not believe as was taught. The post- 
Reformation Churches called Him a God of “justice 
perverted.” That is not Christian. If we are to chris¬ 
tianize our theology we shall have to get away from the 
old dogmatism. We shall have to get away from the 
old creeds, to put them to one side for the moment; at 
any rate, to realize what they are, how they came to be, 
what immense pagan elements are in them, how they 
speak to us more of Greek philosophy than of Christian 
thinking; and we shall have to come back to Jesus 
Christ, or, rather, to accept the teaching of Jesus Christ 


WHAT IS GOD ? 


25 


and try to see God as He set Him before the world. The 
terms in which Jesus Christ spoke about God were not 
the terms of the throne or the lawcourt or the judg¬ 
ment-seat. They are the terms, as some one has said 
recently, of the home. It was “Father’’ and “love” 
of which He spoke. 

When the Church drifted from the moorings of love, 
Fatherhood, and home, it watered its own stock and 
could not pay dividends on all the paper which it had 
issued. 

We do not have to go back to the days of Constantine, 
or of Joshua, for evidence that God is here. Bergson is 
right: Life is God; and life which turns the clod into 
a man is the evidence of His presence. A boy asked 
his father, “What is the air? I cannot see it, nor touch 
it, nor weigh it.” “Come out, my son,” replied the 
father, “this spring day. Now breathe.” The boy 
drew in long breaths. “How good it is!” he said. 
“That is the air,” replied his father. “You cannot see 
it, nor touch it, nor weigh it; the way to know it is to 
breathe it.” 

We breathe air, but we cannot see it. That is the 
answer of the present to the demand, 11 Give us some evi¬ 
dence of God.” “In Him we live and move and have 
our being.” We experience God—the Spirit within— 
but we cannot see God. No Church has a monopoly of 
Him. He is neither Catholic nor Protestant, Orthodox 
nor Liberal, Christian nor Jew nor Pagan; He is all 
and more than all; He is “all in all.” 

“When we are not engaged in theological or eccle¬ 
siastical discussion, we recognize this Spirit in life 


26 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


who is more than the sum of all human lives. He is in 
all Churches and all religions, but He is more than all 
Churches and more than all religions. He binds us to¬ 
gether in families, in neighborhoods, in nations. 

“We speak of the American spirit, the English spirit, 
the French spirit, the Italian spirit. And now we are 
beginning to perceive that, as no creed is sufficient to 
define and no ritual is sufficient to utter the human con¬ 
sciousness of the Great Spirit who makes of all religions 
one religion, so neither is any nation large enough to 
interpret it. It is this Spirit dwelling with us and in 
us who unifies us, binds us together, makes possible 
human brotherhood; who makes of a hundred million 
people of different tongues, traditions, faiths, races, one 
American people; and who, now, in spite of our ego¬ 
tisms and our prejudices, is bringing all nations together 
in an international brotherhood. It is He who binds 
the past, the present and the future together in a unity 
as impossible to deny as it is impossible to define. 

“This Spirit in literature unites all interpreters of 
life, because life is more than all interpreters; unites 
all lovers of liberty, because liberty is more than all 
political sects, as faith and life and love are more than 
all religious sects. This Spirit in Abraham Lincoln is 
more powerful today than it was when he was Presi¬ 
dent, because he was only one interpretation of that 
spirit of justice and liberty and mercy which finds some 
interpretation in all pure, heroic, true men and women. 
It is not in a sun, halting for an hour in its journey 
to the western horizon; it is not in a cross shining for 
an hour in the sky and then fading, that we are to look 


WHAT IS GOD? 


27 


for an evidence of God. If these phenomena should 
occur, they would be but a poor evidence of God and 
no indication of His moral worth. Spirit is the evidence 
of Spirit and it is in the Spirit in man that we are to 
look for a Spirit greater than the sum of all human 
spirits. For God dwells in His children and the evi¬ 
dence that He exists is in the children in whom He 
dwells.’’—Lyman Abbott. 

All who believe in a power greater than ourselves, 
a power that makes for righteousness in ourselves, might 
well be summoned to unite in an expression of their 
gratitude for His inspiring presence in the past and to 
make humble and hearty petition for His guidance in 
the future. 

We cannot define God, we cannot describe God any 
more than “I am”—God is Love, Spirit—and the only 
proof that I know of God, is the Spirit of God being 
in the children of His creation. That is God. God is 
within you whether Catholic, Protestant, Greek or bar¬ 
barian. If we want more proof than that, I wonder if 
w~e are not somewhat like the boys who wrote to Pro¬ 
fessor McKeever, asking him to “prove that there is a 
heaven, if there is one.” 

When the boys asked Professor McKeever to prove 
that there is a heaven, “if there is one,” he told the boys 
that not long ago he went into the home of a stricken 
father whose only son was asleep in Flanders’ fields* 
where the poppies grow. The precious young life had 
been nipped in the bud and the blood of his darling boy 
was sprinkled upon the altar of democracy. As Mc¬ 
Keever entered the home of this grief-stricken father, 


28 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


the old man proudly led the scholar into the room 
where his son was wont to spend much time as a little 
boy. The father tenderly and sweetly toyed with the 
relics of the boy’s childhood with which he used to play. 
Then he led the professor into the boy’s bedroom and 
here, with all the sympathy and love and tenderness 
pouring from a heart that was open and bleeding, told, 
with a certain amount of patriotic pride, how his boy 
had slept in this room for many years, now never to 
return, whose final sleep was being watched by the angels 
of God in Flanders’ fields in France. 

From here the professor went to see a mother whose 
little baby had lately been in her arms for the last time 
and who still had tear-washed eyes in the recollection 
of the little life which was with her so short a time; and 
she, in turn, spoke as only a suffering mother can speak 
of the great joy and happiness that had been hers for a 
little while and was now only the shadow of a recol¬ 
lection—a dim mist of memory. 

After visiting these two places he went out under the 
starry heavens and looking up, saw countless numbers 
of stars and moons and planets, each one, in silent array, 
pursuing its course in its time and in its place. The 
professor had viewed these three scenes. He had seen 
love expressed by the father of the boy in khaki; he had 
seen the love of the mother’s heart wrung with anguish 
and pain; and then came to the broad, arching heavens 
and saw the love of God manifested in the glowing stars, 
in the reflecting moons and in the circling planets. 

Who could define love? No one. Yet the great pro¬ 
fessor had seen love lived and expressed by the father 


WHAT IS GOD ? 


29 


and by the mother and by the great creative principle of 
life. The love of the father was inexpressible and un¬ 
explainable. The love of the mother was unutterable 
and unfathomable. Dr. McKeever had seen what love 
is, but he could not define it. The father and mother 
knew love, but they could not explain it. 

He saw in the heavens what? Movement of the 
spheres and the stars. And what is the wonderful law 
of the movement of the spheres? And the more sym¬ 
pathetic laws which control the clouds, and the rain, 
and the life from the seeds in the earth ? 

Let us call it Zeus, Pan, Nature, or Law, or X, that 
which performs all these things. You know as well as 
you know your own name that there is an intelligent 
power. Why not call this power “God”? Can you 
think of any grander or more sublime object to worship ? 

No, do not try to analyze and fathom the depths of a 
father's devotion, or the subtleties of a mother's love, 
or the mystery of the stars in the heavens, or the 
hidden essence of growing life in the earth, or the ma¬ 
jestic power that holds all these things and yourself 
in the form of an intelligent universal system. 

The very best you can do is to act as if these things 
were true and eternally to be trusted. And lo and be- 
hold! the assumption works. Use the law of love, the 
law of growth, the law of eternal rhythmic change a9 
eternal laws of your own being, and thus God Himself 
will come into your soul and bless you with the satis¬ 
faction that He lives and reigns forever and ever. 


30 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


Orison Swett Marden has ably expressed the psycholo¬ 
gist’s opinion of God and mind in the following words: 

When a man realizes that he is divine, when he sees that 
he is a part of the everlasting principle which is the very 
essence of reality, nothing can throw him off his physical or 
mental balance. He is centered in the everlasting truth, in¬ 
trenched there in infinite power from the taint of fear, or 
anxiety, or worry, or accident, because he is conscious that 
he is principle himself, a part of the eternal verity. The 
feeling that he is in touch with the power which made and 
upholds the universe, that nothing can wrench him from this 
divine presence, gives a sense of security and peace. When 
he awakens in the morning, refreshed and rejuvenated, he 
feels that he has been in touch with the divinity that created 
him; that he has passed the borderland of. sense and has 
come into the presence of an infinite power, an infinite life; 
that he has been created anew, and hence, when he is tired 
and weary and sad, how he longs to get back to this divine 
presence, to be made over, to quench his thirst at the great 
fountain-head of life. 

Serenity of spirit, poise of mind, is one of the last lessons 
of culture, and comes from a perfect trust in the all-con¬ 
trolling force of the universe. The moment man realizes 
that he is a part of a great cause, that he is made to dominate 
and not to be dominated, he will rise to meet every situation 
in a masterly instead of in a cringing manner. 

When he comes to the full realization of his divinity, he 
will not be thrown from his base, nor will his peace be dis¬ 
turbed in the least by the vexatious happenings which trouble 
those who have not risen to their dominion, or who have not 
yet learned the secret of power. 

Yogi Ramacharaka tells us that “the real self is pure 
spirit—a spark of the divine fire.” 


WHAT IS GOD ? 


31 


Dr. Edward B. Warman, an eminent authority on 
mental science, expresses this phase of mind in a most 
admirable way: 

On the material plane a material body has been given us 
to serve material purposes. It is merely the tenement of the 
soul; therefore it were better to say, “My soul has a body,” 
than to say, “My body has a soul.” The soul is paramount. 

I look upon the soul as a spark of Divinity, and as such it 
possesses all the potentialities of God—omniscience, omni¬ 
potence, omnipresence; these, of course, only in the degree 
of the spark to the whole—the soul to the All Soul; just as 
one drop of water from the ocean possesses all the qualities 
of the ocean as a whole. 

Then we may logically conclude that man is immortal. Let 
us put the argument in the form of a syllogism: 

That which cannot be severed into parts cannot be de¬ 
stroyed. 

The soul, being a thinking agent, cannot be severed into 
parts. 

Therefore the soul cannot be destroyed. 

The belief in immortality has at least this much in its 
favor: The negative cannot be proved. If immortality is 
not true, it matters little whether anything else is true or 
not. When we theorize about the unknown there can be no 
safer guide than the analogy of known facts. 

“There is,” says Heywood, “a growing conception of God as 
the universal Mind, and man the highest evolution and mate¬ 
rialization of mind. The cultivation of mind power thus 
leads up to the very door of religion.” 

That man is a part of the universal subconscious, 
superconscious, and cosmic mind is pointed out by Dr. 
Terry Walter in his “Handbook of Life”: 

Hermetic philosophy came as near to defining mind as 
science has today, for in the Kybalion we read, “The All is 


32 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


Mind; the universe is mental,” and again, “While All is in 
the All, it is equally true that The All is in all.” * * * 

When you realize that you and all about you are the result 
of mind, you will awaken to the importance of studying your¬ 
self and your mentality. “Know thyself,” as inscribed over 
the door of the Temple of Delphi, in the city of Memphis, 
Egypt, has been commended to us by the philosophers of the 
ages, and it is just as important today as ever in the days of 
history. 

And of the oneness of subconscious, superconscious, 
and conscious mind, Kate Atkinson Boehme, says: 

They are all One Mind, but One Mind differentiated in 
functioning as a tree might be differentiated into root, trunk, 
and branch. 

Pope, in his classic style, expresses it thus: 

All are but parts of one stupendous whole 
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul. 

Thus we realize that the soul within us is “God in 
us”, and we naturally conclude that this spirit is en¬ 
dowed with all Godlike attributes. 

What is God ? God is life, but we cannot explain life. 
God is spirit, but we cannot explain spirit. God is love, 
and lo! our lips are sealed, our reason dumbfounded 
and our language mute, for man cannot explain love. 
Man cannot explain God. Man can only experience 
God; and in experiencing God, he knows that God is, 
and that God is within; that this God is Spirit—Mind. 
God is All; mind is all; you and God are one and the 
same. Your mind and God’s mind are one and the 
same, but of different degrees. 


WHAT IS GOD? 


33 


That man is not separate from God is expressed by 
Kate Atkinson Boehme, in the following: 

I turned to Spinoza and read: “If God be infinite Sub¬ 
stance, there can be no substance outside of God, and man is 
therefore no substance, or he is God.” This corroborated my 
thought as to the oneness of substance. . . . Since God 
is omnipresent, He must be within man, in continual touch 
with his soul, in fact one with it; one in spiritual substance, 
even as the ray of light is one with the sun, so that it has 
been truly said, “Closer is He than breathing; nearer than 
hands and feet.” 

Two of the different degrees of mind are the conscious 
and subconscious, which you may study in following 
chapters in Applied Psychology and Scientific Living. 

Dr. Thomas Parker Boyd is referring to the import¬ 
ance of the varying degreesi of mind when he says: 
“There axe countless unconscious mental processes for 
one conscious mental operation.” 

“The subconscious mind,” says Winbigler, “relates 
man to this universe and to all that is in it.’ ’ 

Kate Atkinson Boehme puts into a few words the 
experience of the average man in his idea of mind: 

We are too apt to think of the conscious mind as the whole 
of mind, not understanding that there are mental activities 
of which wei are not aware, but the reasoning, philosophical 
person accepts on good proof much more In the world than 
the small part of it that comes under his immediate observa¬ 
tion. He believes in suns, stars, planets, and worlds that are 
beyond his cognizance. We have equally good proof of the 
existence of mind that is beyond our cognizance. There cer¬ 
tainly are mental activities that are carried on without direct 
volition from the conscious mind, and without our knowledge. 


34 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


Aaron Martin Crane sets forth the idea of the sub¬ 
stance of God, thus: 

Someone has said that spirit is a makeshift word; and so 
are all words which undertake to name the essentials of God. 
Even the name God, or any name for Him, even the pronouns 
which we apply, are a poor kind of makeshift, if we look at 
them from one point of view. 

This thought that God is of one substance and man of an¬ 
other must be a mistake because, as we have already seen, 
God is the one creator and cause, and the cause exists in its 
effects; hence, whether we are able to perceive it or not, the 
substance of God, which is spirit, must be the essential con¬ 
stituent and substance of man as well as of all else, for all 
is from Him as first cause. 

Then, the fact that God is spirit does not indicate any 
separation nor any separateness between God and man; on 
the contrary, it binds them in the closest possible relationship. 
When man shall definitely recognize the meaning of this 
faith of all the ages, and shall realize that, in the' essential 
of his own being, he is spiritual, he will then comprehend 
that this fact, that God is spirit, forms the strongest possible 
tie between himself and his heavenly Father. 

That all is mind and that nothing exists apart from 
mind, or spirit, and that the difference between mind 
and what we call matter is merely a difference of tan¬ 
gibility, are principles perceived long ago by the an¬ 
cients, and are accepted by practically all modern 
psychologists. Keferring to the connection between 
mind and matter, and their places in the scale of tan¬ 
gibility, Dr. Christian D. Larson says: 

Reduce anything to its last analysis, and you will find it to 
be mind. Even iron, when reduced to its last analysis, be¬ 
comes a mental force in nature; and many scientists believe 


WHAT IS GOD? 


35 


if they could reduce still further, they would find it to be 
absolute spirit. What we speak of as matter is simply mind 
vibrating in the scale of tangibility. Matter does exist, but it 
do6s not exist apart from mind. Matter is mind in tangible 
expression. It is, therefore, strictly scientific to think of the 
body as visible mind and to think of all the organs in the 
body as being centers of intelligence. And we shall find that, 
when we take this view of the body, the physical system will 
no longer be a chunk of clay, but will become a more and 
more highly organized instrument, responding perfectly to 
every desire of the ruling mind—the conscious mind, the “I 
am” in man. 

Dr. Thomas Parker Boyd sets forth, in “The Voice 
Eternal”, the principle now accepted by psychologists 
generally, that the material manifestation is made first 
and the spiritual manifestation follows. He says: 

“There is,” says St. Paul, “a natural body and there is a 
spiritual body.” How be it that is not first in manifestation 
which is spiritual, but that which is natural or material, and 
afterward that which is spiritual. Now this spiritual body is 
the subconscious self. 

In “Mind and Body”, Atkinson says: 

The subconscious mind is amenable to suggestion. It is 
realized that this great controller of the physical organism 
is so constituted that it accepts as truth the suggestions from 
the conscious mind of its owner, as well as those emanating 
from the conscious minds of other people. 

Thus if we think health thoughts, the blueprint of 
health is materialized in our bodies* 

•For a complete study of this, see Fundamentals of Practical 
Psychology by the author. This volume of Applied Psychology and 
Scientific Living purposes to give the reader the first fundamental, 
practical laws, showing how our predominating thought, by way 
of suggestion and autosuggestion will increase our efficiency. 



36 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


Dr. Walter succinctly says: 

A witty Frenchman has said, “God created man in His own 
image and man has been returning the compliment ever 
since.” 

The first step toward achievement and success is self- 
knowledge, and he who knows himself knows God. 

There is no dividing line, therefore, between you and 
God. Hence there is no dividing line between you and 
health, you and abundance, you and success, you and 
happiness, you and achievement—unless your thinking 
makes it so. 

Enlarging upon the “unseparateness” of God and 
man, Helen Rhodes Wallace says: 

By different mystics whose lives witness to the union of 
mind of man with mind of God, the experience has been 
called “Inward expansion; an outgoing flight; absorbed in¬ 
ward gazing; divine union; melting into the divine abyss; 
drenched with Spirit; imageless nudity; profound immersion 
in God; passing beyond ourselves.” 

This then is the “God in us” and we naturally con¬ 
clude that it is endowed with all Godlike attributes. 

So the subconscious mind—spirit—soul—and God are 
synonymous. You are a part of the creative principle, 
aye, a “spark” of the divine energy, the God power. 
So God and you are one; and you, being a partner with 
all the divine power, all things are possible for you here 
and now. 


WHAT IS GOD? 


37 


To reiterate: Your mind and God’s mind are one 
and the same, but of different degrees. Two of these 
different degrees are the conscious and the subconscious 
mind, which we shall study in the next few chapters. 

NOTE: More on the love of God will be found in this 
book in the chapter on “Fear." 


38 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


CHAPTER II 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


Genius 

You are a genius. Genius is asleep in your subcon¬ 
scious or subjective mind. Man is no longer a blind 
victim of fate. He has the power within literally to 
work out his own salvation. Man is master of his fate. 

Your greatness lies in your subconscious mind. To 
know this and to arouse the genius, to put your subcon¬ 
scious mind to work for you, means your greatness. 

“ ‘There sits the savage/ once exclaimed a friend of 
10106,” says Boris Sidis, an eminent neuropathologist, 
“ ‘with three-quarters of his brain unused!’ Yes; there 
sits the savage with a brain far surpassing the needs of 
his environment, harboring the powers of a Socrates, 
a Plato, an Aristotle, of a Shakespeare, a Darwin, and 
a Newton. The ancient German and Briton hardly dif¬ 
fered in their mental powers from their contempo¬ 
raries, the civilized Egyptian and Babylonian. What, 
then, did these Aryan savages do with their richly 
endowed mental energies? Nothing. The mental 
energy was lying fallow—it was reserve energy— 
energy for future use, for the use of future ages of 
coming civilization. ’ ’ 

Warren Hilton says: 

A mighty and intelligent power resides (within you. Its 
marvelous resources are just now coming to be recognized. 




THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


39 


Recent scientific research has revealed, beyond the world 
of the senses and beyond the domain of consciousness, a wide 
and hitherto hidden realm of human energies and resources. 

These are mental energies and resources. They are phases 
of the mind, not of the “mind” of fifty years ago, but of a 
“mind” of whose operations you are unconscious and whose 
marvelous breadth and depth and power have but recently 
been revealed to the world by scientific experiment. 

“The power of the subconscious is enormous,” says 
Dr. Wilfred Lay; “to all intents and purposes it is 
illimitable. It is a source of power to us, which if we 
rightly understand it, we can draw upon just as we turn 
on power from a steam pipe or an electric wire.” 

Albert R. Olston, in “Mind Power and Privileges”, 
has rightly said: 

The subconscious is a stratum of mind, which* until 
recently, has been a mere mystery. Now that we are be¬ 
coming more intelligent concerning its laws, powers, and 
characteristics, all of this is being turned to practical account. 
This vast field is no longer a matter of mere curiosity, but 
of most practical import. 

No child was ever born defective or abnormal. There 
has come a shock—a fright, or a harmful suggestion— 
to the subconscious mind of the child at or after birth. 
This shock may come from the use of instruments in 
helping deliver a child at birth, or this shock may come 
an hour, a week, a month, a year or more after the 
child is born. 

Andre Tridon says: 

Insanity, feeble-mindedness, and criminality are not in¬ 
herited characters. They are often acquired through either 


40 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


imitation or suggestion or both.* ... In other words, 
insanity is no longer considered as a brain disease, or as a 
set of absurd symptoms grouped in varying clinical pictures. 
Insanity is an abnormal asset for the insane, a dream from 
which he does not awaken, and which supplies him with ail 
abnormal form of wish-fulfillment.** 

Henry Wood refers to the susceptibility of the infant 
mind to abnormality by suggestion, in the following: 

But we may fancy that we have a crucial test in the case3 
of infants, the sleeping, insane, or idiotic, who are incapable 
of knowledge or mental operation. Not in the least. By 
well ascertained psychological law, all these influences are 
so present in the psychic atmosphere that they impress them¬ 
selves upon unconscious mentality, and most of all upon the 
sensitive and passive mind of an infant. 


♦See Volume VI, Fundamentals of Practical Psychology. 

**If the reader is interested in pursuing this line of study, 
Andre Tridon in “Psychoanalysis and Behavior,” page 146, 
says that “one case treated by Dr. Kempf at St. Elizabeth’s 
hospital, Washington, D. C., offers good evidence that many 
apparently ‘desperate’ cases could be cured by the psycho¬ 
analytic technique,” and follows with illustrations, after which 
the author continues: “It is difficult to avoid the conclu¬ 
sions that after being insane and recovering, she was better 
fitted for life, and had become a more interesting human type 
than before the onset of her neurosis.” 

The author finishes with these words: “Eighty per cent 
of the mentally diseased, he thinks, could be cured if properly 
treated. This applies, of course, to cases in which there is 
no destruction of nervous tissues.” 

A complete report of this interesting case will be found 
in the Psychoanalytic Review, for January, 1919, under the 
•title, “The Psychoanalytic Treatment of Dementia Praecox”, 
by Dr. Edward J. Kempf. 

Dr. Kempf’s theories are discussed in the last chapter of 
the present book. His ideas on the management of hospitals 
for the insane, which are very progressive, have been pub¬ 
lished under the ‘title “Important Needs of Hospitals for 
Mental Disease,” New York Medical Journal, July 5, 1919, 



THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


41 


The subconscious mind of the child is subject to 
impressions from the outside world, at birth and after. 
A perfectly normal child may be made abnormal, while 
it is yet an infant, by wrong environment, conditions, 
or other “unfriendly” suggestions. 

Andre Tridon cites the following case: 

One of Kempf’s patients let her parents bring her up as 
a perfectly irresponsible woman, and later, when that irre¬ 
sponsibility made her married life very unpleasant, instead 
of re-educating herself and solving her problems in a posi¬ 
tive, constructive way, she accepted her relatives’ dictum that 
“she was crazy”, and became “crazy”. 

Kempf re-educated her; after becoming herself, she threw 
off the yoke of suggestion imposed upon her by silly rela¬ 
tives. 

I have had many cases <of abnormal adults who were 
considered mentally defective, who have been healed 'by 
the power of suggestion.* 

Here is a typical case : Bennie was a thirty-four year 
old man brought to me by his mother and older sisters. 
Bennie, they said, was different from other boys. 
Bennie alwaysi had been different, and they thought 
Bennie always would be different. 

The mother had had many children, one following 
closely upon the other, so that she was not in the pink 
of physical perfection, and Bennie paid the price of 

*The reader will find in this volume information on the 
law of suggestion. For a further study of this we would 
refer him to The Psychology of Success, Volume II, and 
Other Methods of Healing, Volume VII, in The Fundamen¬ 
tals of Practical Psychology, and in Practical Psychology 
and Sex Life, by the author. 



42 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


her worn-out system. When Bennie was born he was 
not as active as the other children. Bennie would lie 
on the bed apparently listless, indifferent to sounds or 
commotion about him. Bennie didn’t “goo-goo”, and 
play with his toes as much as the mother’s other 
youngsters. Bennie didn’t scream and “hosier” and 
cry, like the rest of her children did. Therefore, at the 
very threshold of Bennie’s mortal existence, the 
mother leaned over her infant and talked to him in 
most despairing and unpsychological terms. 

She was sorry for her little Bennie, and she told 
him so. Other children could kick and run and romp, 
and play with their toes, get into a tantrum and show a 
temper, but Bennie wasn’t like that. The rest of the 
family added to this “un'friendly suggestion,” so 
that the first thing Bennie remembered, when he came 
to understand his mother’s language, was that he was 
different from other children. 

All during his babyhood and childhood, Bennie was 
protected and cared for, and carried around by the 
rest o'f the family on a mental invalid’s chair—Bennie 
wasn’t like other children. This was all little Bennie 
knew, and isio he took life just as it seemed to be. He 
accepted the suggestion of his loved ones, and Bennie 
really thought he wasn’t like other children. 

The fact is that Bennie’s mother had not given him 
enough physical vitality, and Bennie started on hisi 
life’s journey recuperating at the first lap. They 
didn’t even give him a chance to hit a high-chair for 
the home stretch. Bennie was handicapped, and so 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


43 


when they brought him to me and began telling me 
that Bennie was not like other children, I told them 
that the first thing we would do would be to change the 
name Bennie. I said: “He is now a thirty-four year 
old man, well call him Ben.” 

Ben had been sent off to two schools for abnormal 
children, and in neither one of these schools for defec¬ 
tive children could he make even the first grade. He 
w*as sent home, back to the family fireside where the 
suggestion on every hand, at every stroke of 'the clock, 
was that Bennie wasn’t like other children. 

When I said that we would call him Ben for he was 
as much <of a man as I, Ben threw back his shoulders; 
Ben was thrilled. Bennie, 'by the turn of the hand, 
was changed into Ben. 

We gave him suggestions, as the reader will find 
later explained in this book, and in others of the series 
of Fundamentals of Practical Psychology, and in two 
weeks Bennie was a new creature. Bennie had always 
wanted to be a carpenter; but when he spoke about 
building houses, instead of getting him some good tools 
and encouraging him in his effort, they bought him a 
little Christmas toy tool-chest with a miniature set of 
tools that a carpenter couldn’t make a dollhouse with. 
My first instruction to the family was to get Ben a set 
of tools, and to get the best they could find. The genius 
had been touched. Bennie was a thing of the past. He 
was now Ben. 

So we are speedily coming to the new point of view 
—to the psychological truth that persons who are 


44 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


abnormal, aye, even the insane, are what they are 
because of “unfriendly suggestion”. 

Dr. Louis Walstein, in “The Subconscious. Self,” 
makes the following statement: 

From the moment of birth—and, insofar as we have seen 
that organic, or splanchnic sensations are communicated 
to the brain, even before birth—begin the deposit and re¬ 
tention of subconscious impressions in the mind of the child, 
and so the foundation is laid for the development of that 
part of man’s mental nature. 

The beginnings of nervous disturbances, so frequent in 
our idmes, can be traced even further back, into the period 
of infancy: Many cases of sleeplessness, lack of appetite, 
and general restlessness in the infant are caused by sur¬ 
roundings which are exciting, and awaken prematurely the 
impressionability of the infantile mind, when it is of the 
greatest importance that restfulness and regularity should 
prevail. 

A young boy of my acquaintance had an invincible dislike 
to music, and could not be prevailed upon to continue his 
piano lessons. I was impressed by the violence of his aver¬ 
sion, and, upon inquiry, was told that he was born and 
passed his infancy in a house next to a conservatory of music; 
nio doubt, he had been constantly disturbed in his sleep by 
the discordance of sounds from a number of instruments 
played at the same time. Another showed a surprising and 
violent dislike to business. When I found that it was be¬ 
cause of his inaptitude for the study of arithmetic, I learned 
that his first teacher was a person who looked upon his own 
profession as an unbearable drudgery, and was hence an 
object of the most violent dislike because of his gruffness 
and unfairness to the young and impressionable boy. The 
manner here was the efficient cause in creating a far-reach¬ 
ing dislike for the object of teaching, and had nothing to do 
with a lack of talent or natural gift. 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


45 


A most striking illustration of this is found in an 
experience in the mental life of Helen Keller, as de¬ 
scribed by Dr. Walstein, in the same book: 

The serious illness, that threatened her life at the time, 
left the child of nineteen months with only those organs of 
sense unimpaired which we are accustomed to regard as the 
lower senses in man—those of touch, of taste and of smell. 
Her high degree of intelligence today—which enables her 
to converse with rare thoughtfulness and understanding, 
not only in English, but also in German and French, and to 
form a judgment quite her own of her surroundings, of 
events, and of persons—must have been entirely formed by 
impressions received through them, and, we may assume, 
by those that date back into babyhood. 

Among her many accomplishments that for appreciating 
music is one of the most astonishing. She perceives it by 
feeling the vibrations of the instruments with her fingers 
placed lightly upon them, and even through the floor, when, 
as in one instance, it was covered with a thick carpet. For 
she is not only conscious of it, but is without a doubt swayed 
by its rhythm, either depressed by a melancholy strain like 
“The Old Folks at Home,” or “Home, Sweet Home,” or elated 
and pleasantly excited by a waltz or a galop. I have seen 
her deeply affected by the female voice which reached her 
through her fingers .touching the throat of the singer. On 
another occasion she likened a dance played on the piano 
from the manuscript to “running water.” The simile ap¬ 
peared to all of us as very apt. Three months later, she 
again made the same comparison upon hearing the same 
composition for the second time. She has, therefore, created 
a centre for musical impressions through the sensations of 
touch, just as we have one for the same order of impressions, 
with the important difference that ours is connected with 
the ear, while Helen Keller’s is connected with the nerve- 
endings in the skin and muscles. Were it possible to recall 
true aural impressions in her case through the medium of 
touch—aural impressions that must have been received, of 


46 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


course, before her nineteenth month—it not only would prove 
the force of subconscious, impressions (being infantile), but 
would suggest the interesting question whether in such cases 
a connection is not established between the one centre that 
of ‘hearing, and the other, that of touch, and thus create a 
new kind of mental process, peculiar to such cases. 

With this purpose in view, I wrote to Mrs. Keller, who 
kindly sent me the titles of two plantation songs, which 
were dommonly sung in her home in Alabama when Helen 
was a baby, but are not now generally sung, and which I 
could procure only in manuscript from the South. These 
tunes I played upon the piano, while she stood beside the 
instrument iwith her fingers resting upon its wooden frame. 
Care was taken, of course, that she should know nothing of 
my intentions, and that she should be taken unawares. The 
effect was striking. The young woman, now just entering 
upon her sixteenth year, became greatly excited, laughed, and 
clapped her hands, after the first few bars of “Way Down 
in the Meadow a’mowing of the Hay/’ 

“Father carrying baby up and down, swinging her on 
his knee!” “Black crow! Black crow!” she exclaimed, re¬ 
peatedly, with manifest emotion. Miss Sullivan and several 
ladies present were greatly astonished at the result. On 
hearing the second song, “The Ten Foolish Virgins,” the same 
effect was produced. It was evident to all those who were 
present that the young lady was carried back to her early 
surroundings, even into the time of life when she was car¬ 
ried about by her father; but we could not find a meaning 
for the words “black crow.” I considered it prudent not to 
question her, but applied by letter to her mother, who was 
kind enough to send an early reply. Mrs. Keller said: 
“What you wrote interested us very much. The ‘Black 
Crow’ is her father’s standard song, which he sings to all 
his children as soon as they can sit on his knee. These are 
the words: ‘Gwine long down the old turn row, something 
hollered, Hello, Joe!’ etc. It was a sovereign remedy for 
putting them (the children) in a good humor, and was sung 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


47 


to Helen hundreds of times. It is possible she remembers it 
from its being sung to the two younger children as well as 
to herself. The other two, I am convinced she has no asso¬ 
ciation with, unless she can remember them as she heard 
them before her illness. Certainly before her illness her 
father used to trot her on his knee andi sing the ‘Ten Vir - 
gins,’ and she would get down and shout as the negroes do 
in church. It was very amusing. But after she lost her sight 
and hearing it was a very painful association, and was not 
sung to these two little ones” (the younger children). 

It was quite clear that the child, after she was nineteen 
months old, might have received an impression of the “Old 
Crow” song when it was sung to the younger children, 
through the peculiar vibrations communicated to the floor of 
the room; but the other two songs could only be perceived 
through the ear when she was a baby younger than eighteen 
months, and could hear, and are, therefore, a part of her 
earliest memory. We are, therefore, justified in assuming 
that the vibrations of the piano from the two plantation 
songs communicated to her by the touch, over fourteen years 
later, have traveled to the center '.where her early aural im¬ 
pressions are stored up, and that they, in their turn, re¬ 
awakened the memory of the Old Crow song, which she had 
heard before her illness, and possibly also had felt by vibra¬ 
tions afterwards when it was sung to the younger children. 

What evidence that the impressionable baby minds 
are receptive to suggestions! Either for good or bad. 
How true that insanity, defective children, and abnor¬ 
mal people may be the direct result of suggestion! 

Dr. Winbigler says: 

The law of suggestion may be stated as follows: 

1. Mind is impressible by suggestion and it will carry 
out the same to its ultimate conclusions, unless there is a 
hindering, competing idea or physical inability or impedi¬ 
ment. 


48 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


2. The subconscious mind accepts a statement or sug¬ 
gestion and will carry it out completely unless a counter¬ 
suggestion is made by the conscious mind or by another. 

3. The suggestion is accepted by the subconscious mind 
as true, unless antagonized by an opposite statement either 
by the conscious mind or the mind of another.* 

4. The external channels of suggestion are the voice, face, 
expression, demeanor, gesture, iword, and personality. 

It does not matter Low old we are or how far we 
(have progressed, genius is still asleep in the subcon¬ 
scious mind. It is >a matter of arousing this genius by 
suggestion, so that each one will develop the latent 
power within. 

Albert B. Olston shows the spontaneity and im¬ 
manence of genius, in the following: 

Among men of genius the activities in the subconscious 
stratum have not always been so quiet, but have greatly 
disturbed the person, made him feel that something was 
struggling for birth. This fact is well illustrated by the 
remarks of the great genius Schopenhauer in speaking of the 
great work he expected to bring forth. He said: 

“Beneath my hand, and still more in my head, a work, 
a philosophy, is ripening, which will be at one® an ethic 
and a metaphysic, hitherto so unreasonably separated, just 
as man has been divided into body and soul. The work 
grows, and gradually becomes concrete, like the foetus in 
the mother’s womb. I do not know: what will appear at last. 
I recognize a member, an organ, one part after another. 
I write without seeking for results, for I know that it all 
stands on the same foundation, and will thus compose a 
vital and organic whole. I do not understand the system 
of the work, just as a mother does not understand the foetus 


*See Mental Telepathy and Vibration, Vol. IX. in this series. 



THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


49 


that develops in her bowels, but she feels it tremble within 
her. My mind draws its food from the world by the medium 
of intelligence and thought.” 

Two things stand out in bold relief in Schopenhauer’s 
case. First is his own implicit confidence in the great 
truth and worth of what should be born as a whole. A 
confidence that might be called a gigantic egotism. And yet, 
from his premise it was but natural, and quite necessary. 
He believed in the powers that were at work within him. 
In the second place, we notice the extreme automatism (as 
it were) of the formation of the fragments into a complete 
system. The same has been experienced by many. 

“One of the greatest pleasures of my life,” said 
David Belasco, “is in taking raw material and develop¬ 
ing and moulding it. To me it is a delight to play on 
the (human emotions: to watch the bud of imagination 
expand and the latent but dominant talents awaken 
and come to life.” 

The creations of genius, for instance, can only be explained 
by assuming that they result from the spontaneous action 
of that part of man’s mind freed from the chains which the 
intellectual, the purposely “educated” part of the mind, has 
wound round it. The artist will himseli ofttimes confess that 
he cannot explain how his best work has been done; he can 
but rarely attain the same degree of creative freedom at will. 
Every one of us has such moods when it appears as if some 
other power than that over which we have control speaks or 
acts out of us. 

There are moments when the mind has, as it were, shaken 
off the oppression of the selecting will, when self-criticism 
is ignored, and conceptions in thought or form spring into 
life without effort. Difficult problems, intricate situations, 
are treated with surprising facility; and when we relapse 
into our accustomed condition, it is as if we had fallen from 


50 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


a height, or if another, a more powerful individuality had 
existed in us for the time. We have a name for such mo¬ 
ments; we call them inspired, and thus erroneously go 
outside of ourselves for an explanation, instead of finding 
it deep down in our subconscious self, .the germ& of which 
were sown perchance far back in our childhood, developed 
by our surroundings, added to by conditions beyond our 
control, and not chosen by those who were preparing the 
material for our mental development. So far from being the 
cause of our mood of “inspired" productiveness, this care¬ 
fully directed mental “education" was really efficient only 
in recalling us to our ordinary, sober and “rational" state. 

It is through the subconscious self that Shakespeare must 
have perceived without effort great truths, which are hidden 
from the conscious mind of the student, that Phidias fash¬ 
ioned marble and bronze, that Raphael painted Madonnas, 
and Beethoven composed symphonies. Shelley, for instance, 
frequently sees odors, feels light and shade, and is moved by 
things incorporate. It is futile to attempt an explanation of 
these artistic phenomena from the purely conscious point of 
view, and it is for this reason that all efforts of analysis fail 
to make us understand the workings of genius, which we 
realize but cannot follow. It is precisely by reason of the 
ingenuousness, the naivete of genius that perception does 
not approach the subject through the conscious channels; 
it is entirely without purpose, without analysis, without 
induction. What seems to us the result of most minute 
observation and subtle reasoning has been spontaneously, 
subconsciously apprehended by the artist; it is, I should 
say, an elemental process of unreasoning impressionability, 
which with us is rare and fitful, whilst it is the normal, 
well-nigh constant mood of the poet and the productive 
artist. Such minds, as Dowden expresses it, are the descend¬ 
ants not so much of their direct progenitors as of the whole 
human race. Hence the universality of their works, and their 
unfailing wisdom, and the absolute beauty of form in which 
they are clothed. 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


51 


Thus writes Louisi Walstein, in “The Subconscious 
Self”. 

And Gustave Geley, in “From the Unconscious to 
the 'Conscious”, agrees with him: 

This subconscious influence is sometimes imperative and 
supreme; it is then called “inspiration.” 

Under its influence the artist or the inventor produces his 
work (sometimes a masterpiece) at one stroke, without pon¬ 
dering over it or reasoning about it; it often transcends his 
design without effort on his part. The subconscious inspi¬ 
ration is sometimes experienced in sleep in the form of lucid 
and connected dreams. 

Thomas Jay Hudson, in (his epoch-making book, 
“The Law of Psychic Phenomena”, gives an explana¬ 
tion, based on psychological law® so far as yet known, 
about the “genius” which manifests in some persons. 
He says' 

The subjective mind, or soul, of man possesses the inherent 
power to perceive, under certain exceptional conditions not 
clearly defined, those operations of nature which are gov¬ 
erned by fixed laws. It was by means of this power of 
instantaneous perception of the laws of numbers that Zerah 
Colburn, before his objective education was sufficient to en¬ 
able him to understand the power of the nine digits, was 
enabled instantly to state the cube root of any number that 
was given him. He could never give any explanation of the 
means by which the result was accomplished. It was be¬ 
yond his own objective powers of comprehension. He simply 
perceived the truth. 

It was this power that enabled Blind Tom to perceive the 
laws of the harmony of sounds. He was without objective 
education, and devoid of the capacity to acquire one; but 
from the moment when he discovered an old piano in an 


52 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


unused room of his master’s mansion, he was able to impro¬ 
vise beautiful melodies, and to reproduce with remarkable 
accuracy a piece of music after once hearing it played. 

This is a power which transcends reason, and is inde¬ 
pendent of induction. Instances of its development might be 
multiplied indefinitely, but it is not necessary in this connec¬ 
tion to enlarge upon a fact which will receive the instant 
assent of the intelligent reader when his attention is called 
to it. In this objective existence of ours, trammeled as is 
the human soul by its fleshly tabernacle, it is comparatively 
rare that conditions are favorable to the development of the 
phenomena. But enough is known to warrant the conclusion 
that when the soul is released from its objective environment 
it will be enabled to perceive all the laws of its being, to 
“see God as He is,’’ by the perception of the laws which He 
has instituted. It is the knowledge of this power which 
demonstrates our true relationship to God, which confers 
the warranty of our right to the title of “sons of God,” and 
confirms our inheritance of our rightful share of His attrib¬ 
utes and powers—our heirship of God, our joint heirship 
with Jesus Christ. 

How did Jesus obtain the scientifically accurate and ex¬ 
clusive knowledge of the laws pertaining to the exercise of 
subjective power, of which every act and word of His 
demonstrates His possession? 

The ready and easy answer of unreasoning faith is, “mir¬ 
acle.” But is it necessary in this case to invoke the aid of 
such an explanation? Clearly not. Without entering upon 
the discussion of the vexed question of the possible existence 
of the power to work a miracle, it must be held as a self- 
evident proposition that we should never convert an event 
into a miracle when there is a satisfactory explanation 
within the known laws of nature. 

In this case the necessity does not exist to presuppose a 
miraculous intervention of Divine Power, since God has 
given to every human soul the inherent power, under certain 
conditions, to perceive and comprehend the fixed laws of 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


53 


nature. What those conditions are, we may never know. 
That they exist, the events within common knowledge amply 
demonstrate. That they are exceptional, goes without say¬ 
ing. No one man has ever been able to perceive all the 
laws during his objective existence. One perceives the law 
of numbers, another that of the harmony of sounds, another 
that of the harmony of colors, and so on. 

Jesus Christ perceived spiritual law. 

That His intuitions were scientifically exact, so far as 
they pertained to the subject of His physical manifestations 
in healing the sick, is amply demonstrated by comparison 
of what He did and said with the discoveries of modern 
science within this, the last quarter of the nineteenth 
century. 

It was this power of perception of truth without the neces¬ 
sity of resorting to the slow and laborious processes of in¬ 
duction that enabled Christ to divine the whole law of mental 
therapeutics. Science, after 1900 years of induction, has 
demonstrated the fact that He perceived the whole law, and 
applied it with scientific accuracy. The most marvelous 
part of it all is that the account of it has been preserved and 
transmitted with such fidelity of scientific detail. 

Dr. Winbigler says: 

Inspiration, genius, power, are often interfered with by 
the conscious mind’s interposing, by man’s failing to recog¬ 
nize his power, afraid to assist himself, lacking the faith 
in himself necessary to stimulate the subconscious so as to 
arouse the genius asleep in each. 

The careful reader of the following chapters in 
Applied Psychology and Scientific Living will learn 
some of the important laws which will teach him to 
recognize his genius so that “the power within’’ will 
be put to work stimulating his latent talents. 


54 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


CHAPTER III 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND—Continued 


Prodigies—Original Knowledge—Universal Mind 

Prodigies of all kinds—musical, mathematical, and 
otherwise, are subconscious conditions. 

Albert B. O'lston says: 

Numerous illustrations could be given of the marvelous 
mathematical abilities of many children. Objective education 
only resulted in hiding the spontaneous faculty. 

Another illustration of how the subconscious mind works I 
take from Holmes’ Life of Mozart: 

The purely subjective nature of musical production is well 
illustrated by the great genius Mozart, in his answer to a boy 
who asked him how he should begin in order to compose. 
“You must wait.” 

“You,” said the boy, “composed much earlier.” “But,” 
replied Mozart, “I asked nothing about it. If one has the 
spirit of a composer, one writes because one cannot help it.” 

No better description can be given of how a great musical 
genius composes, and from which stratum of mind music has 
its birth, than the following paragraphs from a letter written 
by Mozart to a friend: 

“You say you should like to know my way of composing, 
and what method I follow in writing works of some extent. 
I can really say no more on the subject than the following, 
for I myself know no more about it, and cannot account for it. 
When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone, and 
of good cheer, say, traveling in a carriage, or walking after 
a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep—it is 




THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


55 


on such occasions that my ideas flow] best and most abun¬ 
dantly. Whence and how they come I know not, nor can I 
force them. Those ideas that please me I retain in my 
memory, and am accustomed (as I have been told) to hum 
them to myself. If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to 
me how I may turn this or that morceau to account, so as to 
make a good dish of it, that is to say, agreeable to the rules 
of counterpoint, to the peculiarities of the various instru¬ 
ments, etc. 

“All this fires my soul, and, provided I am not disturbed, 
my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodized and defined, 
and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and 
finished in my mind, so that I can survey it like a fine picture, 
or a beautiful statue at a glance. Nor do I hear in my 
imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, 
at once.” 

You will notice this genius of the great composer is 
unaccounted for by him. How he came by hiisi “illumi¬ 
nation”, as the Hindus would call it, he did not know, 
and some of the necessary steps to tap this genius, 
may not be fully understood, but that “genius is 
asleep in the subconscious” is scientifically believed 
now. The study of the subconscious mind is the cardi¬ 
nal thing for all who would seek to have their genius 
brought to the surface. 

Every day biography relates this. You need only 
read any reputable biographical series to understand 
this.* 


*In Chapters 7 and 8 In Psychology of Success, I have 
shown how some of the greatest men were, one time or 
another, considered “dunces, dullards, and asses”. In the 
same volume, I have given the two great laws, psychological 
and physiological, which tapped their genius. The same may 
be done by others. Above all, remember that you are a 
genius—your “genius is asleep in the subconscious.” 



56 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


Dr. Hudson notes many remarkable prodigies, among 
which are the following: 


Of mathematical prodigies there have been upwards of a 
score whose calculations have surpassed, in rapidity and 
accuracy, those of the greatest educated mathematicians. 
These prodigies have done their greatest feats while but 
children from three to ten years old. In no case had these 
boys any idea how they performed their calculations, and 
some of them would converse upon other subjects while doing 
the sum. Two of these boys became men of eminence, while 
some of them showed but a low degree of objective intelli¬ 
gence. 

Whately spoke of his own gifts in the following terms: 

“There was certainly something peculiar in my calculating 
faculty. It began to show itself at between five and six, and 
lasted about three years, ... I soon got to do the most 
difficult sums, always in my head, for I knew! nothing of 
figures beyond numeration. I did these sums much quicker 
than any one could upon paper, and I never remember com¬ 
mitting the smallest error. When I went to school, at which 
time the passion wore off, I was a perfect dunce at cyphering, 
and have continued so ever since/’ 

Professor Safford became an astronomer. At the age of 
ten he worked correctly a multiplication sum whose answer 
consisted of thirty-six figures. Later in life he could per¬ 
form no such feats. 

Benjamin Hall Blyth, at the age of six, asked his father 
at what hour he was born. He was told that he was born at 
four o’clock. Looking at the clock to see the present time, 
he informed his father of the number of seconds he had 
lived. His father made the calculation and said to Benjamin, 
“You are wrong 172,000' seconds.” The boy answered, “Oh, 
papa, you have left out two days for the leap years 1820 and 
1824,” which was the case. 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


57 


And Dr. Schofield tells of the celebrated case of Zerah 
Colburn: 

Zerah Colburn could instantaneously tell the square root of 
106,929 as 327, and the cube root of 268,336,125 as. 645. Before 
the question of the number of minutes in forty-eight years 
could be written he said 25,228,810. He immediately gave tihe 
factors of 247,483 as 941 and 263, which are the only two; 
and being asked then for those of 36,083, answered none; it is 
a prime number. He could not tell how the answer came 
into his mind. He could not, on paper, do simple multiplica¬ 
tion or division. 

And how do we explain such marvels of mind? 

The subconscious receives some of its knowledge from the 
five senses, through the conscious mind and from other minds 
by telepathy. 

It is the great connecting link between the body and the 
Eternal Spirit of this‘universe and makes it possible, by virtue 
of its intuition, spiritual perception, and perfect faith, for man 
to appropriate all that the universal Mind has to give. 

The former general inexplicability of such feats is 
expressed in the following: 

Berthelot, the great French founder of modern synthetic 
chemistry, once stated in a letter to a close friend that the 
final experiments which led to his most wonderful discoveries 
had never been the result of carefully followed and reasoned 
trains of thought, but that, on the contrary, “they came of 
themselves, so to speak, from the clear sky.” 

Charles M. Barrows, in “Suggestion Instead of Medi¬ 
cine/’ says: 

If man requires another than his ordinary consciousness 
to take care of him while asleep, not less useful is this same 

*See Volume IX of this series. 



58 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


psychical provision when he is awake. Many persons are 
able to obtain knowledge which does not come to them through 
their senses, in the usual way, but arrives in the mind by 
direct communication fromi another conscious intelligence, 
which apparently knows more of what concerns their welfare 
than their ordinary reason does. I have known a number of 
persons who, like myself, could tell the contents of letters in 
their mail before opening them. Several years ago a friend 
of mine came to Boston for the first time, arriving at what 
was then the Providence railroad station in Park Square. He 
wished to walk to the Lowell station on the opposite side of 
the city. Being utterly ignorant of the streets as well as the 
general direction to take he confidently set forth without ask¬ 
ing the way, and reached his destination by the most direct 
path. In doing this, he trusted solely to “instinctive guid¬ 
ance,” as he called it, and not to any hints or clews obtained 
through the senses. . . . 

An eminent professor in an American university once told 
the present writer that, while spending a vacation in the 
country, he fell from a horse he was riding, and was so badly 
hurt that he lost consciousness. How long after the accident 
he lay upon the ground he could not tell, but, while still un¬ 
conscious, he got up, led the horse home (a distance of about 
two miles), and put him into the stable where he belonged. 
According to the popular belief, one might say, here was a 
man who did not know anything; yet during this condition 
of unconsciousness he did what would have been impossible 
unless he did know something. 

S»o- we are prepared to agree with Atkinson and Beals, 
when they say: 

Prom the region of the superconscious comes that which is 
not contrary to reason, but which is beyond ordinary reason. 
This is the source of illumination, enlightenment, genius, 
inspiration. This is the region from which the true poet ob¬ 
tains his inspiration, the exceptional writer his gift, the real 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


59 


seer his vision, the veritable prophet his knowledge. Many 
have received messages of this kind from the region of the 
superconscious, and have thought that they heard the voice 
of 'God, of angels, of spirits—but the voice came from within. 
In this region are to be found the sources of intuition. Some 
of the superconscious faculties are higher than are others, 
but each has its own part to play. Many a man has received 
inspiration from within, and has given a message which has 
astonished the world. Many poets, painters, writers, 
sculptors, have acted upon the inspiration received from their 
superconsciousness. Certain great poems, certain great writ¬ 
ings, certain great pictures, certain great statues, have about 
them an indefinable something which appeals to us and makes 
us feel their wonderful strength—that mysterious quality 
absent from the productions of ordinary mental effort. 

There have been many geniuses and prodigies who 
have tapped the unlimited knowledge of the infinite 
and who seemed to have understood everything without 
any effort at all. It is said that Sir Isaac Newton who, 
in mathematics as applied to science, reigns monarch of 
all, got his wonderful knowledge without any conscious 
effort. It simply seemed to come to him from out of 
space—the universal Mind. 

Descartes, with his great intellectuality and philo¬ 
sophical system, did not have any ordinary formal edu¬ 
cation—like Lincoln, handicapped; like the great New¬ 
ton, his knowledge and wisdom seemed to come from 
an unknown source—the universal Mind. All prodigies 
have knowledge which comes from somewhere they 
know not where nor how. The mind of man acts as a 
photographic plate, and when certain fundamental laws 
are touched at the right time, the photographic plate 
in the mind of man snapshots the great reservoir of 


60 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


wisdom 'and knowledge of (the infinite, and these in 
turn are given to the world, they know not how. 

Or it may be explained as a magnet. All human be¬ 
ings are mental magnets with more drawing power than 
the electrified steel magnet, and when we get in tune 
with the Infinite, these spiritual, mental magnets draw 
from the universal Source of all knowledge, unlimited 
understanding. 

Mathematical prodigies are legion—people who are 
able to solve the abstruse problems! as quickely as 
enunciated by someone else—and yet they know not how 
it is done. This is all a subconscious condition. 

A man who had never been through the fourth grade 
in the public school, who had been in the butcher and 
gioce ! ry business all of his life, came to me a few years 
ago with a scheme of harmony that he thought no one 
in the world had known. It was a commonly understood 
law of vibration and harmonics as related to matter. 
He had worked this 'out to a nicety, had even drawn 
diagrams to illustrate it. These diagrams were made 
with all of the art of a skilled mechanical drawer and 
yet he had never had a lesson in drawing. 

He said that at various times, about two o’clock in 
the morning, he would waken and get impressions, 
which he would get up and jot down. These experi¬ 
ences came to him intermittently during a series of 
years. Finally he had a perfected system of harmony 
in matter, and yet he never knew that anyone else had 
thought of the same thing. 

The subconscious mind is the storehouse of all knowl¬ 
edge. We can draw from the universal Mind any 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


61 


original knowledge along any line which we may desire; 
that is one reason why there is no need for anyone 
to be just mediocre, because, down in the depths of the 
subconsciousness, there are latent powers and talents 
which, if brought into expression, can make of one a 
genius along any line. 

It is very commendable to have a high school, college 
and university education—sometimes; but if you have 
been denied this privilege you still have the power 
within, by proper concentration, to draw from the uni¬ 
versal storehouse of knowledge that which you may 
desire. 

Hudson says>: 

Countless examples might be cited to show that in all 
the ages the truth has been dimly recognized by men of all 
civilized races and in all conditions of life. Indeed, it may 
he safely predicated of every man of intelligence and refine¬ 
ment that he has often felt within himself an intelligence not 
the result of education, a perception of truth independent of 
the testimony of his bodily senses. 

It is this mind power, or mind current, which is so 
pertinent in this great day of ours, and which each per¬ 
son ought to try to understand; for the success, health, 
and happiness o'f each of us depend upon our relation¬ 
ship to and understanding of the multitudes of thought 
currents which reach and affect usi.* 


♦This is discussed in the chapter on Vibration, in this 
volume, also Volume IX in this series. 



62 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


CHAPTER IV 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND—Continued 


Different Degrees in Animal and Man 

Every person comes into the world with a well-de¬ 
veloped subconscious mind and seems to function largely 
in that subconscious mind until about the age of twelve. 
When a baby is creeping, or able to sit propped by 
pillows, it responds to noises around about; when it 
laughs or cries while in its infancy, it is functioning in 
the subconscious mind; but as the child gradually tries 
to adjust itself to the external conditions that are 
around him, there is such a demand for objectifying 
that he gradually develops a phase of mind which we 
call the conscious or objective mind. 

All is mind and all mind is the same, but there are 
different, degrees «of this mind, ranging all the way 
from the conscious mind of man and beasts, to the uni¬ 
versal or cosmic mind. 

Now, for practical purposes to which we will put our 
subconscious mind, let us take the simple statement that 
“man has two minds.” These two minds are part of 
the one great universal subconscious mind, which has 
other degrees as well, as mentioned above. Every per¬ 
son has at least two degrees of this mind. We call them 
the conscious or objective mind and the subconscious or 
subjective mind. 




THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


63 


The subliminal, or subconscious, mind (which, the late 
Professor James says, is the greatest discovery of one 
hundred years) is one and the same “mind,” but a dif¬ 
ferent manifestation of it. 

Dr. Morton Prince seems to agree with Professor 
James, and says: 

As one of our foremost psychologists has said, the sub¬ 
conscious is not only the most important problem of psychol¬ 
ogy. it is the problem. 

So we see, then, that the mind of man has two distinct 
phases of content -and action: the conscious and the 
unconscious, and the subconscious; or the objective 
and the subjective. 

J. D. Beresford, who wrote the introduction to Dr. 
Gustave Geley’s “From the Unconscious to the Con¬ 
scious,” makes this assertion: 

I believe that, in fifty years’ time, Dr. Geley’s “From the 
Unconscious to the Conscious’’ will be looked upon as bear¬ 
ing the same kind of relation to the discoveries of the twen¬ 
tieth century that Darwin’s “Origin of Species’’ bore to the 
nineteenth. . . . And we must remember that Dr. Geley 

comes before us backed by the authority of the practical 
scientist and scholar. ... He was chosen by scientific 
men of the highest standing and repute, such as Professor 
Charles Richet and Camille Flammarion, to be the director 
of the International Metaphysical Institute, in Paris. 

In his book referred to above, Dr. Geley says: 

It is only in our own day that subconscious psychology has 
forced itself on scientific criticism. Entirely disregarded 
till the nineteenth century, it was then considered only as 


64 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


the anomalous outcome of disease or accident; it now asserts 
its increasing importance, and henceforward all researches 
and all new discoveries form parts of its domain and extend 
its reach. 

Many authorities on the science of mind are in 
accord with Dr. Geley; among them, Dr. Charles Bar- 
rows, who says: 

Indeed, modern psychologists claim that man is endowed 
with more than a single consciousness—that two distinct 
consciousnesses, or even a greater number, may coexist in one 
and the same living brain, each having its own peculiar 
means and mode of manifestation, while neither is aware of 
the presence of the others. The conception of mind, which 
we have so long regarded as one unified intelligence, as 
being thus split up, will strike the novice as bizarre; and 
some readers may account the doctrine a blank heresy. But 
it has come to be accepted by science; and the remarkable 
experiments made by Gurney, Janet, Binet and others, serve 
to establish its truth, while the well-known phenomena of 
“post-suggestion” are unaccountable on any other hypothesis. 

I have treated with marked success patients who did not 
realize that I was trying to help them or take any notice 
of what I was doing. 

Frederick W. H. Myers, the English essayist and in¬ 
vestigator of psychic phenomena, referred to the sub¬ 
conscious as a ‘‘level of consciousness” existing below 
the ordinary level or plane of everyday consciousness 
—“below the threshold.” This phase of the subcon¬ 
sciousness he termed “subliminal consciousness.” . . 
Myers again refers to this by the term “subliminal 
self.” 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


65 


Coriat says: 

Or to draw an analogy from physics, consciousness is only 
the visible portion of the spectrum—the invisible,) ultra por¬ 
tions are our subconscious selves. 

The conscious mind is that which we use in reason¬ 
ing, judging and arguing, that which we use during 
our “awake’’ state; and this mind is under the control 
of the will. It acts voluntarily at our will and command. 
We might call it the intellect. 

As Hey wood, in “Personal Efficiency and Mind 
Power Building,” says: 

One of the best explanations that has been made of the 
conscious and subconscious mind of every human being is 
by comparing them to coral islands. On the surface there is 
a little circular ridge of red rock surrounding a lake of 
shimmering green water, and on this ledge a fringe of tropic 
vegetation. This is all there is to be seen on the surface, 
with no suggestion of that mighty structure extending down 
to the ocean’s bed built by uncountable millions of coral 
creatures. 

The human mind of even the humblest person is like this 
coral island. It is built up with the associated sense impres¬ 
sions of all past experiences. In the passing moment, certain 
perceptions, emotions, impulses and ideas are sparkling in 
the sunlight of consciousness. 

The author of “Health and Self-mastery through 
Psychoanalysis and Autosuggestion ”, tells us: 

The importance and vastness of the unconscious as a 
psychic content may be realized when we use the simile of 
Dr. G. Stanley Hall, who compares the mind to an iceberg 
floating with one-eighth visible above the water and seven- 


66 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


eighths below—the one-eighth above representing the con¬ 
scious, and the seven-eighths below, the unconscious. The 
influence and controlling power of the unconscious desires 
over our thoughts and actions may be said to be in this rela¬ 
tive proportion. Thus, the saying, “He does not know his 
own mind,” is literally true of all of us. 

In “Subconscious Power” is found the following in¬ 
teresting analogy: 

Some writers have compared the subconscious and the 
conscious regions of the mind to the visible and invisible por¬ 
tions of the solar spectrum. Science informs us that the 
visible portion of the solar spectrum, with its red, orange, 
yellow, green, blue, indig and violet rays, is bounded on its 
lower side by a region of infra-red rays and on its upper 
side by a region of ultra-violet rays, these invisible fields of 
light extending almost indefinitely in either direction. These 
hidden rays are invisible to our unaided eyes, but are 
recorded by delicate scientific instruments. The larger part 
of the heat rays emanating from the sun is invisible to us, 
and forms a portion of the infra-red field of the solar spec¬ 
trum. Likewise, the major, portion of the chemical changes 
in the vegetable world, upon which depend the life and 
growth of the plants, results from the action of the ultra¬ 
violet rays which are invisible to our unaided eyes, but which 
our scientific instruments faithfully record. The most power¬ 
ful rays of light, those which produce the most marked 
effects upon living creatures, are the invisible ultra-violet 
rays—the rays of “dark light,” as they have been fancifully 
styled. 

Other writers have compared the conscious and subcon¬ 
scious planes of mentation to a small luminous circle, sur¬ 
rounded by a great ring of twilight; and, beyond this, an 
indefinite darkness—the events occurring in that twilight 
region, and in that night region, being quite as real as those 
occurring within the luminous circle. Others still have 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


67 


likened the mind of man to the earth, with its great under¬ 
lying deposits of coal and oil, in which slumber latent light, 
heat and other forms of potential energy, force and power, 
awaiting but some appropriate stimulus to bring to the sur¬ 
face the materials from which those forces may be released. 

As Hudson says: 

Man has two minds, each endowed with separate and dis¬ 
tinct attributes and powers. Under certain conditions each 
is capable of independent action. The conscious or objective 
mind takes cognizance of the objective world. The five 
physical senses are the channels through which it works. 
It is the outgrowth of man’s physical necessities. “It is his 
guide in his struggle with his material environment ” Its 
highest function is that of reasoning. 

The subjective mind takes cognizance of its environment 
by means independent of its physical senses. It perceives 
by intuition. It is the seat of emotions. It performs its 
highest functions when the objective senses are in abeyance. 
In a word, it is that intelligence which makes itself manifest 
in a hypnotic subject when he is in a state of somnambulism. 

The subconscious or subjective mind is that which 
controls our involuntary actions: the beating of the 
heart, the circulation of the blood; it is that which con¬ 
trols all organs of the body that function without our 
conscious thought. 

Ninety per cent of everything w’e do is under control 
of the subconscious mind. You must remember this, 
that you may see the great necessity of understanding 
how to use the subconscious mind for your success, 
health, prosperity, love, joy, peace and harmony. 



68 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


The differing functions of the objective or conscious 
mind, iand the subjective or subconscious mind, are de¬ 
scribed, by Dr. Geo. C. Pitzer, as follows: 

The objective mind is the mind which results from organi¬ 
zation, and it may be regarded as the function of the brain. 
It is the mind with which we do business; the mind that 
operates through the five physical senses. It comes, de¬ 
velops them, matures, and finally declines and dies with the 
physical body. It controls in a great measure, all voluntary 
motion. We call this the “brain mind.” It is capable of 
reasoning both deductively and inductively. 

The subjective or subconscious mind is a distinct entity. 
It occupies the whole human body, and, when not opposed 
in any way, it has absolute control over all the functions, 
conditions, and sensations of the body. While the objective 
mind has control over all of our voluntary functions and 
motions, the subjective mind controls all of the silent, invol¬ 
untary, and vegetative functions. Nutrition, waste, all secre¬ 
tions and excretions, the action of the heart in the circula¬ 
tion of the blood, the lungs in respiration or breathing, and 
all cell life, cell changes and development, are positively 
under the complete control of the subjective mind. This was 
the only mind animals had before the evolution of the brain; 
and it could not, nor can it yet, reason inductively, but its 
power of deductive reasoning is perfect. And more, it can 
see without the use of physical eyes. It perceives by intui¬ 
tion. It has the power to communicate with others without 
the aid of ordinary physical means. It can read the thoughts 
of others. It receives intelligence and transmits it to people 
at a distance. Distance offers no resistance against the suc¬ 
cessful missions of the subjective mind. It never dies. We 
call this the “soul mind.” It is the living soul. It is capable 
of sustaining an existence independent of the body. 

Now, in proper, healthy or normal conditions of life, the 
objective mind and the subjective mind act in perfect har¬ 
mony with each other. When this is the case, healthy and 


TIIE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


69 


happy conditions always prevail. But, unfortunately perhaps 
these two minds are not always permitted to act in perfect 
harmony with each other; this brings mental disturbances, 
excites physical wrongs; functional and organic diseases. 

Our unconscious is a tremendous storage plant full of 
potential energy which can be expended for beneficial or 
harmful ends. Like every apparatus for storing up power, it 
can be man's most precious ally, if man is familiar with it 
and, hence, not afraid of it. Ignorance and fear, on the other 
hand, can transform a live electric wire into an engine of 
destruction and death.* 

If you have any doubts as to whether you have two 
minds or not, I call your attention to what takes place 
during the administration of ether, when the conscious 
mind no longer has power to think and reason or to 
register sensations, whether of joy, fear or pain. The 
patient on the operating table, when etherized, is still 
living, but unconscious of his surroundings, the instru¬ 
ments, the blood. He is unaware of danger or peril. 
The patient has a conscious mind, but this conscious 
mind has been put out of business for the time being. 
The subconscious mind is still active, because the heart 
and the respiratory organs continue to function. 

In fact the subconscious mind never rests—when it 
stops, man ceases to live. The subconscious mind works 
day and night—ceaselessly, endlessly it continues. 
Therefore, how easy it is to see that ninety per cent of 
all our life’s activities are controlled by the subcon¬ 
scious mind. 


♦For practical application of these laws, see Practical 
Psychology and Sex Life, by the author. 



70 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


Relative to the different degrees of mind, someone 
has poetically expressed it thus: 

The subconscious, in fact, is discovered to be not merely 
a simple ‘‘other mind,” but rather to> be a greater region of 
“other consciousness” mental activity, having its plains and 
its mountain peaks, its highlands and its lowlands—the great 
area of your new mental empire. 

Baudouin believes that: 

The trend of contemporary psychology is to seek in the 
mind, at a lower level than that occupied by the fully con¬ 
scious faculties, other forms of mental life which are deeper 
and less conspicuous. i 

Dr. Hudson is so deeply convinced of the duality of 
the mind that he ©ays: 

It is entirely safe to say that not one fact has yet been 
brought to Jight, by the psychological experts of this or any 
other age, that disproves, or tends to disprove, the funda¬ 
mental fact of the dual character of man’s mental organism. 
It is equally .safe to aver that there is not one fact or 
phenomenon within the whole range of the physical sciences 
that disproves, or tends to disprove, the fact of duality. 

That the duality of mind is not a new idea is pointed 
out by Dr. Winbigler in the following: 

There have been numerous efforts to prove the existence 
of two minds, with varying success, from Plato to Hudson. 

Of the theory of duality, Hudson, when discussing the 
law of mental medicine, says: 

Thus, the theory of duality has been dimly floating around 
in the minds of various philosophers, from the time when 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


71 


Greek philosophy ruled the intellectual world until the 
present age, without seriously affecting the trend of psycho¬ 
logical thought. 

The (dual mind, or the dual self, as two distinct 
entities, is generally accepted now by most leading 
psychologists 'as a unit of mind, not a dual mind within 
man; it is now understood that the mental unity has 
many phases, many levels, many planes and regions of 
manifestation and expression. 

A strange but expressive illustration of the operation 
of the two minds was well demonstrated in a six-day 
bicycle race at Madison Square Garden, some years ago. 
Toward the end of the race the riders became seized 
with delusions and hallucinations. They imagined that 
people were trying to interfere with them and they 
went -out of their course in order to avoid imaginary 
obstacles. 

Indeed, man has his mind divided into two distinct 
parts—and then more. 

Many persons who would study the laws of self for 
purposes 'of self-development, are inclined to be in¬ 
credulous at first of the suggestion that man has many 
minds or many phases of the same mind. Paul Bousfield 
says: 

If one were to tell the ordinary laborer that water is com¬ 
posed of two gases, which, when combined, form a liquid, he 
would probably be quite incredulous, and possibly in his 
ignorance might even deny emphatically any such possibility, 
on the grounds that it was against all common sense and 
experience; he failing to realize, of course, how very limited 
were both his sense and his experience. In spite of his feel- 


72 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


ings of absolute certainty, and in spite of complete faith in 
the unshakable logic behind his belief, he would be wrong. 

While it is not to be expected that many readers of this 
book, will deny the existence of the unconscious part of the 
mind, it may well be that many will fail to realize that it 
is of more than theoretical value. 

Dr. Morton Prince, eminent authority on the uncon¬ 
scious mind, says: 

When speaking colloquially of the content of consciousness 
we have in mind those ideas or components of ideas—ele¬ 
ments of thought—which are in the focus of attention, and 
therefore/ that of which we are more or jless vividly aware. 
If you were asked to state what was in your mind at a given 
moment, it is the vivid elements, upon which your attention 
was focused, that you would describe. But, as every one 
knows, these do not constitute the whole field of conscious¬ 
ness at any given moment. Besides these there is in the 
background of the mind, outside the focus, a conscious mar¬ 
gin or fringe of varying extent (consisting of sensations, per¬ 
ceptions, and even thoughts ) of which you are only dimly 
aware. It is a sort of twilight zone in which the contents 
are so slightly illuminated by awareness as to be scarcely 
recognizable. The contents of this zone are readily forgot¬ 
ten, owing to their having been outside the focus of attention; 
but much can be recalled if an effort to do so (retrospection) 
is made immediately after any given moment’s experience. 
Much can only be recalled by use of special technical methods 
of investigation. I believe that the more thoroughly this 
wonderful region is explored the richer it will be found to 
be in conscious elements. 

That man has two minds is proved by the fact that 
while the conscious mind sleeps under an anaesthetic, 
the subconscious is still active, receptive to ideas, and 



THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


73 


responds readily to suggestion. Dr. Charles F. Win- 
bigler says: 

Surgery, the most scientific branch of medical practice, 
uses the regular anaesthetics, and those are for ordinary 
practices the quickest, but in serious heart trouble where they 
cannot be used, profound anaesthesia can be produced by 
suggestion. Suggestion has been so used in Germany, in 
France, and also in our own country. It has also been used 
effectively for parturition, dentistry, and minor surgery. 

The subconscious mind never sleeps; if it were to fall 
asleep all the functions of the body would cease and death 
would ensue. 

Says Warren Hilton, in “Processes and Personality ”: 

This subconsciousness is a reservoir of unfathomable depth; 
consciousness is but a passing ripple upon its surface. 

And the opinion of Duckworth, in regard to the vary¬ 
ing degrees of the subconscious, and its amenability to 
suggestion, agrees with that of Dr. Prince. Duckworth 
says: 

When the alarm clock goes off in the morning we start the 
day with a getting-up consciousness. This is followed by a 
breakfast consciousness, the getting-to-the-city consciousness, 
the lunch consciousness, the going-to-the-club consciousness. 

Again, to understand the two degrees of the great uni¬ 
versal subconscious mind in man, you have only to recall 
what a hypnotist can do with a subject who is under 
hypnotic influence. Under hypnosis, a most respected 
and dignified citizen, if he be a good subject, will do 
any foolish and outlandish thing at the command of the 
hypnotist. The hypnotist has only to tell him that he 


74 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


is a rooster, and your dignified banker will flop his arms 
at his side, bend his knees in a half-squatting position, 
and attempt to crow like a rooster. The hypnotist may 
tell the subject that his leg has been cut off and the 
subject will believe it. He may then tell some other 
subjects under hypnosis that “this leg has been cut off,” 
and these men will pretend, at the command of the 
hypnotist, to be doctors, and will, while under the influ¬ 
ence, pantomime putting the leg back into its position. 

Hugo Miinsterberg is authority for the following: 

The hypnotized person is ready to perform any foolish¬ 
ness; is not influenced by any considerations of tact and 
taste and wisdom and respect. 

Hypnosis is the suspension of the conscious mind by 
suggestion while the subconscious mind is still alive, 
active and forceful. 

But not only m-an has these two degrees of mind; 
namely, the conscious and the subconscious. This is 
also true of animals—I believe of all the lower animals 
This is why snake-charmers have control over reptiles. 
This is how magicians, such as appeared before the 
Egyptian Pharaoh, performed their wonderful feats 
three thousand years ago—by hypnosis of animals. 

By a slight pressure in the neck region, it is possible 
to make a wild excited asp (hooded snake) suddenly 
become motionless, so that the dangerous reptile may be 
put in any position without fear of its fatal bite. This 
Moses and Aaron understood, just as well if not a little 
better than the snake-charmers at the Court of Pharaoh. 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


75 


When Pharaoh’s “magicians” were able to turn a snake 
into a rod and a rod into a snake, they had nothing on 
Moses and Aaron. Pharaoh looked on dumbfounded. 

Pharaoh, was not a snake-charmer. Pharaoh did not 
understand hypnosis of animals, but the great Israelite 
and his brother did. It was a matter of sudden pressure 
in the neck region of a snake until it stiffened and 
looked like a rod. This Moses and Aaron were able to 
do as well as the other snake-charmers, and so the won¬ 
derful recorded miracle of Moses turning a rod into 
a serpent was but the natural application of the law 
of hypnosis applied to animals. 

Thus, you see, man and animals have twn* minds (or 
you might speak of a snake mind, a lizard mind, a 
guinea-pig mind, a chicken mind) that is of a higher 
degree than the mind that is in the snake that crawls on 
its belly. 

It is the opinion of Yer Worn that the hypnosis of 
human beings and of animals depends on the same 
psychological mechanism. It is an inhibition of the 
will. If you want to prove this for yourself, get a 
rattlesnake, grip it quickly by the back of the neck, 
press slightly, and see the rattlesnake come under your 
control. (Of course you might rather take our word 
for it than to play the part of a rattlesnake-charmer.) 

If you don’t care to experiment with a snake, then try 
a chicken. If any excited fowl is seized suddenly with 
a firm grip and laid quickly upon its back, after a few 
brief attempts to escape it will remain motionless. 
Guinea pigs, rabbits, frogs, lizards, crabs and many other 
animals behave similarly. 


76 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


Tbe use of suggestion tio the subjective or conscious 
mind in hypnosis is shown by Albert B. Olston, in 
“Mind Power and Privileges”; he applies the princi¬ 
ples specifically, thusi: 

This subjective mind activity and training are matters of 
such high importance that I feel constrained to give some 
evidence in support of it, though this has already been done 
in previous chapters. We know that in certain troubles in 
which there occurs a prolapsus of an organ, the organ may 
be brought up to its normal place by the subjective mind 
alone. This has usually been done under hypnosis. The 
organ being placed where it belonged, the mind was instructed 
to impart the necessary tone to muscles and supporting tis¬ 
sue. Where the subjective mind is faithful in the discharge 
of imposed labor, this has proved to be an effective means 
of treatment. The mind will go on attending to such duties 
for days and weeks after instruction, until the part has 
grown strong.* 

Another illustration is to be found in experiments where 
the subjective mind is told to heal one wound rapidly, while 
at the same time it makes a bad sore of another like wound. 
That it will continue to perform that which is suggested to 
it (under favorable circumstances and conditions) is proven 
by all deferred or post-hypnotic suggestions and suggestions 
given telepathically. These are often carried out as late as 
many months after the time given, and according to instruc¬ 
tions given. 


♦For an extended study along tihe lines of Hypnotic Sug¬ 
gestion, see “The Psychology of Suggestion,” by Boris Sidis; 
“The Law of Psychic Phenomena,” by Hudson; “Psychic 
Therapeutics”; “Therapeutic Suggestion Applied,” by Pitzer; 
“Suggestion,” by Pitzer; “A Mail Course in Suggestive 
Therapeutics and Hypnotism,” by Herbert A. Parkyn. 



THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


77 


Much that will help the student to understand the 
remarkable features of the subconscious is given by 
Dr. Boris Sidis, in his descriptions of concrete cases. 
He says: 

“It is quite certain/’ writes Braid,* “that some patients 
can tell the shape of what is held an inch and a half from 
the skin on the back of the neck, crown of the head, arm, 
or hand, or other parts of the body, the extremely exalted 
sensibility of the skin enabling them to discern the shape of 
the object so presented from its tendency to emit or absorb 
caloric. ... A patient could feel and obey the motion 
of a glass funnel passed through the air at a distance of 
fifteen feet.” 

“The entranced subject is able to walk freely about the 
room with bandaged eyes or in absolute darkness without 
striking against anything, because, as Moll, Braid, Poirault, 
and Drjevetsky point out, he recognizes objects by the re¬ 
sistance of the air and by the alteration of temperature. 

We find in the hypnotic subject hypersesthesia of vision, 
of hearing, and of smell. 

One cannot help being struck by the great acuteness of 
the sense of hearing in hypnotic trance. To give an example: 
While Mr. W. was in a state of hypnosis, Mr. G. whispered 
in my ear, “Six o'clock.” I scarcely could hear the whisper. 
I then turned to Mr. W. and asked him whether he heard what 
Mr. G. said. “Yes,” he answered. “Mr. G. said six o’clock.” 

To prove visual hypersesthesia in my subject, A. F., I gave 
him a book to read while he was in hypnotic trance and his 
eyes were closed. “Read,” I commanded. “I cannot,” he 
answered. “Yes, you can; you must read. Try.” He began 
to read. So miraculous seemed this experiment that one 
of the gentlemen present exclaimed, “Now I believe in 
hypnotism.” 

Hypnotism is evidence not only of the subconscious mind, 


♦Braid, Neurypnology. 



78 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


but of the wonders of the great separate entity with each 
individual. 

The same holds true in the case of smell. There is an 
exaltation of this sense in hypnosis. Braid’s subject restored 
articles to rightful owners, finding the latter out by mere 
smell. “They (the subjects),” writes Braid,* “began sniffing, 
and traced out, the parties robbed and restored it (the arti¬ 
cle) to them. On being asked, ‘How do you know the per¬ 
son?’ the answer was, ‘I smell them (or him).’ Every time 
the experiment was tried the result was the same and the 
answer the same.” 

Carpenter, in his Mental Physiology, tells of a youth who, 
in hypnosis, could “find out by the sense of smell the owner 
of a glove which was placed in his hand from among a party 
of more than sixty persons, scenting at each of them, one 
after the other, until he came to the right individual.” In 
another case the owner of a ring was unhesitatingly found 
from among a company of twelve, the ring having been with¬ 
drawn before the somnambule was introduced. 

In short, the range of sensibility of the hypnotic subwaking 
consciousness is wider than that of the waking self. 

The subwaking hypnotic self surpasses the waking self in 
its sensitiveness; its range of sensibility extends further 
than that of the upper personality. 

Enough has already been educed to show the exist¬ 
ence of at least two streams of consciousness, of two 
iselves within the frame of the individual. Besides these 
two divisions of mind, to those who want to go a little 
deeper into the subject, it might be said that the mind 
of man may be likened unto a skyscraper, one story or 
layer of mind and reserve energy above the other; or 
one layer of mind beneath the other would be a better 
illustration. 


♦Braid, Neurypnology. 



THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


79 


Doing back again to the two distinct minds, there are 
cases on reeord, a® Dr. Boris Sidis points out,* which 
show that the two streams, or 'the two minds, may flow 
in two separate channels, that the two separate selves 
may be totally ignorant of each other. 

As an illustration of this, Professor William James, 
in Psychology, volume 1, tells use 

On January 17, 1887, Rev. Ansel Bourne, of Greene, R. I., 
an itinerant preacher, drew $551 from a bank in Providence 
with which to pay for a certain lot of land in Greene; paid 
certain bills, and got into a Pawtucket horse car. This is the 
last incident which he remembers. He did not return home 
that day. He was published in the papers as missing, and, 
foul play being suspected, the police sought in vain his 
whereabouts. On the morning of March 14th, however, at 
Norristown, Pa., a man calling himself A. J. Brown, who had 
rented a small shop six weeks previously, stocked it with 
stationery, confectionery, fruit and small articles, and car¬ 
ried on this quiet trade without seeming to anyone un¬ 
natural or eccentric, woke up in a fright and called in the 
people of the house to tell him where he was. He said that 
his name was Ansel Bourne; that he was entirely ignorant of 
Norristown; that he knew nothing of shopkeeping, and that 
the last thing he remembered—it seemed only yesterday— 
was drawing money from the bank in Providence. He would 
not believe that two months had elapsed. The people of the 
house thought him insane. Soon his nephew came and took 
him home. He had such a horror of the candy store that he 
refused to set foot in it again. 

The first two weeks of the period remained unaccounted for, 
as he had no memory, after he had resumed his normal 
personality, of any part of the time, and no one who knew 
him seems to have seen him after he left home. The re- 


*The Psychology of Suggestion, page 138. 



80 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


markable part of the change is, of course, the peculiar occu¬ 
pation which the so-called Brown indulged in. Mr. Bourne 
had never in his life had the slightest contact with trade. 
Brown was described by the neighbors as taciturn, orderly 
in his habits, and in no way queer. He went to Philadelphia 
several times; replenished his stock; cooked for himself in 
the back shop, where he also slept; went regularly to church; 
and once at a prayer meeting made what was considered by 
the hearers a good address, in the course of which he related 
an incident he had witnessed in his natural state of Bourne. 

This was all that was known of the case up to June 1, 
1890, when I induced Mr. Bourne to submit to hypnotism, so 
as to see whether in the hypnotic trance his Brown memory 
(Brown self-consciousness) would not come back. It did so 
with surprising readiness—so much so, indeed, that it 
proved quite impossible to make him, while in hypnosis, 
remember any of the facts of his normal life. He had heard 
of Ansel Bourne, “but did not know as he had ever met the 
man.” When confronted with Mrs. Bourne, he said that he 
had never seen the woman before. On the other hand, he told 
us of his peregrinations during the last fortnight, and gave 
all sorts of details during the Norristown episode. 

I had hoped by suggestion to run the two personalities into 
one, and make the memories continuous, but no artifice 
would avail to accomplish this, and Mr. Bourne's skull 
today still covers two distinct personal selves. 

There is an in-between consciousness in between the 
conscious and subconscious. This interactivity between 
the two degrees of the mind, the conscious and sub¬ 
conscious, is due to lack of concentration or fixation 
of attention in both of these phases of mind. For 
instance, the conscious mind has not yet firmly im¬ 
pressed the subconscious to such an extent that the 
subconscious has seized the suggestion given to it, 
while on the other hand, it may be that thoughts 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


81 


in the subconscious such as memory, do not come 
to the surface so that the conscious mind is able 
to interpret the innermost thoughts, experiences, or 
activities of 'the subconscious. For example, we very 
often try to recall something to memory. It just 
doesn’t come to the surface. We know it’s there, but 
we cannot bring it up. Then we relax, let go, forget it, 
and, lo and behold! the first thing we know—‘bob—up 
it comes from the subconscious to the surface of con¬ 
sciousness. 

A person whose life is hampered by thoughts not 
coming to the surface should know how to relax and fix 
the attention and concentrate so as to have command of 
the conscious mind in all of its operations so that the 
prositive conscious mind will give the positive sugges¬ 
tions to the subconscious, and then both phases of mind 
will function harmoniously and normally. 

Dr. Morton Prince tells us that: 

There is no hard and fast line between the conscious and 
the subconscious, for at times what belongs to one passes 
into the other, and vice versa. 

And Boris Sidis further isays: 

The two selves in normal man are so co-ordinated that 
they blend into one. For all practical purposes a unity, the 
conscious individual is still a duality. The self-conscious 
personality, although apparently blended with the subwaking 
self, is still not of the latter. The life of the waking self- 
consciousness flows within the larger life of the subwaking 
self like a warm equatorial current within the cold bosom of 
the ocean. The swiftly coursing current and the deep ocean 


82 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


seem to; form one body, but they really do not. The one is 
the bed in which the other circulates. The two do not 
mingle their waters; and still, separate and different as the 
two are, they nevertheless intercommunicate. The warmth 
of the Gulf Stream is conducted to the ocean, and the agitar 
tion of the ocean is transmitted to the Gulf Stream. So is it 
with the two selves. Apparently one, they are, in fact, two 
—the warm stream of waking self-consciousness does not 
mingle its intelligence with that of the subwaking self. But 
though flowing apart, they still intercommunicate. Mes¬ 
sages come from the one to the other; and since the range 
of sensibility—life—is wider and deeper in the case of the 
subwaking self, the messages, as a rule, come not from the 
waking to the subwaking, but, on the contrary, from the 
subwaking or secondary to the waking or primary self. 

Hilton says: 

In the language of sport, you are suffering from a lack of 
mental “team work." The effect is the same as if the mem¬ 
bers of a football team, instead of combining their forces 
against the opposing side, should spend their time in re¬ 
straining one another. 

“SUCCESS THEN, LIES IN THE CONCENTRATION OF 
MENTAL ENERGIES. AND THIS CONCENTRATION IS 
TO BE BROUGHT ABOUT BY HOLDING IN CONSCIOUS¬ 
NESS ONLY THOSE IDEAS THAT HARMONIZE.” 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


83 


CHAPTER Y 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND—Continued 


Different Degrees and Planes 

Some of the Yogi Hindu teachers call the different 
degrees of the mind, “planes of the mind/’ and the sub¬ 
conscious mind is also called the “instinctive mind.” 
The subconscious or instinctive mind is not confined to 
the brain as the seat of operations but is distributed 
over the entire nervous system and spinal column, and 
to every cell, atom, molecule, and electron of the body, 
the solar plexus being an important centre for this 
operation. 

In his book, “Cosmic Consciousness , 9 ’ Ali Nomad 
says: 

Returning to a consideration of what may be said to con¬ 
stitute certain specific phases of consciousness, we will take 
into consideration the phase of consciousness which we see 
expressed in the mineral kingdom. That there is a distinct 
and separate character of consciousness thus expressed is 
evident from the fact that there is a law of chemical affinity, 
i. e., attraction and repulsion, which causes different min¬ 
erals to respond, or to refuse to respond, as the case may be, 
to certain conditions or chemical processes, more or less 
crude in character. 

From this to the vegetable kingdom we assume a step in 
advance, as vegetable life, measured by complexity and re¬ 
finement, responds with a greater degree of sensitiveness to 
the laws of evolution, a,s expressed in cultivation, selection, 
and environment, 




84 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


Even in this phase of manifestation, we find the law of 
Being is measured by the perfection of species. Evolution 
of inorganic life is as real, and as much a part of the plan 
(or whatever name we choose), as is organic and self-con¬ 
scious life. . . . 

Coming again, v to our consideration of the term conscious¬ 
ness, we will take a brief survey of that phase of conscious¬ 
ness which we see manifested in the forms of life that have 
the power to move from their immediate environment; such, 
for instance, would include the fish in the sea; insect life; 
reptiles; the birds in the air; and all forms of animal life. 

While expressing a very limited degree of consciousness, 
yet there is evident a certain degree or aggregate of cell 
consciousness, which transcends that of the mineral and 
vegetable life. This apparently advanced degree of con¬ 
sciousness, does not, as we have stated, presuppose a nearer 
approach to immortality, however, for the reason that we 
apply the law of the survival of the fittest to all manifesta¬ 
tion, and that which is best fitted for certain stages of the 
plant's life during the process of evolvement, may be most 
unfitted for succeeding stages, and will, by the inexorable 
law of survival, be discontinued—discarded, even as the 
properties and stage settings of a drama are thrown aside, 
when the play has been “taken off the boards.” 

It is admitted, therefore, that those forms of life, having 
the power of locomotion, involve a more complex degree of 
consciousness than do those of the mineral or vegetable. 

In that phase of life that we see possessing the power to 
move, to change its immediate environment, even though 
not capable of changing its habitat we may perceive the be¬ 
ginning of that consciousness expressed as “free-will.” Here, 
we assume the organism recognizes itself as distinct from 
its environment, and from its counterparts, etc., but this 
recognition has not sufficient consciousness to assert that 
recognition, and so we say that there is no se7/-consciousness. 
There is what occultists have agreed to call simple conscious¬ 
ness, but this does not include a realization of identity, as 



THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


85 


apart from environment. This may be better understood if 
we separate these degrees or phases of consciousness into 
groups, applicable to the human organism, leaving for a 
time the consideration of whether or not some human speci¬ 
mens are higher in the scale than are some animals. 

Physical, or sense consciousness, is shared alike by man 
and the animals. 

Beyond this phase of consciousness we may classify the 
human species in the following terms: 

Physical self-consciousness; 

Mental self-consciousness; 

Soul (individual) “I” consciousness; 

Spiritual self-consciousness.* . . . 

Through mental self-consciousness the way has been long 
and arduous. There are many, many degrees of this phase 
of consciousness, and to this phase we owe what is called 
our present civilization. 

The fact is becoming apparent that all discovery is but an 
uncovering of those vast areas of consciousness which are 
limitless; and which include not only all life on this planet, 
but all in the cosmos. . . . 

But in the immediate future of the race we find the next 
step for the majority to be that of soul-consciousness. 

Referring to this phase of the subconscious menta¬ 
tion, Atkinson and Beals say: 

One of the great fallacies arising from the hasty generaliza¬ 
tion of some of the early investigators, teachers, and writers 
upon the subject of the subconscious, and one which has been 
quite difficult to explain away to the popular mind, is that 
which is generally known as the “two-mind theory," or the 
“dual mind hypothesis.” Arising from this is that asso¬ 
ciated fallacy consisting of identifying one of the hypothetical 


♦For a more complete study of this, see Cosmic Con¬ 
sciousness, Chap. Ill, by Ali Nomad. 



86 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


“two minds” with “the soul,” instead of regarding both of 
these two respective fields of mentation as particular divi¬ 
sions, regions, levels or planes of mental activity, all of 
which are instruments of the manifestation and expression 
of the ego, self, or “I Am I” of the individual. 

If we are called upon to postulate a separate self, or mind, 
to account for and explain each and every phase or aspect 
of mental activity, we shall have not two, but three, four, 
five, seven, ten, twenty, or a hundred different “selves,” 
“minds,” or entities, on our list. The sane and logical con¬ 
clusion is that the mind is unitary—one—having many 
phases, forms, modes or aspects of manifestation and ex¬ 
pression, and many levels or planes, regions or realms, of 
activity and process. 

Hilton, in “Psychology and Achievement,’’ has ex¬ 
pressed it in rather a unique manner: 

As a working unit you are a kind of one-man business 
corporation made up of two departments, the mental and the 
physical. 

Your mind is the executive ofiice of this personal corpora- * 
tion, its directing “head.” Your body is the corporation’s 
“plant.” Eyes and ears, sight and smell and touch, hands 
and feet—these are the implements, the equipment. 

As distinct from our waking consciousness, Professor 
William James 'regards the other degrees of conscious¬ 
ness a:s potential and entirely different. He say®: 

Our normal waking consciousness, as we call it, is but one 
special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted 
from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms 
of consciousness entirely different. We may go through life 
without suspecting their existence, but apply the requisite 
stimulus, and at a touch there they are, in all their complete- 



THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


87 


ness, definite types of mentality which probably somewhere 
have their field of application and adaptation. No account 
of the universe in its totality can he final which leaves these 
other forms of consciousness quite disregarded. 

Six types iof consciousness are given by Sidis, in ‘ ‘ Tbe 
Psychology of Suggestion. ’’* 

I. Desultory consciousness. In this type of consciousness 
there is no connection, no association, between one moment 
of consciousness and another; there is certainly no synthesis 
of moments, and consequently no memory, no recognition, no 
self-consciousness, no personality. This type of conscious¬ 
ness may have its representatives in the psychic life of the 
lowest invertebrates. 

II. Synthetic consciousness. In this type of consciousness 
there is synthesis of the preceding moments in each passing 
moment, but there is no recognition. Former experiences are 
reinstated in consciousness, but they are not recognized as 
such. Instinctive consciousness falls naturally under this 
type of mental activity. Memory is certainly present, but it 
is objective in its nature; it exists only for the observer, 
not for the individual consciousness itself. The subjective 
side of memory, the projection of the present experience into 
the subjective past of the present moment consciousness, is 
wanting; and, of course, it goes without saying that the 
synthetic consciousness has no self-consciousness, no per¬ 
sonality. 

III. Recoynitive consciousness. In this type of conscious¬ 
ness there is not only an objective synthesis of the preceding 
moments in each moment of consciousness, but there is also 
present a subjective synthesis.** Former experiences are not 
only simply reinstated in consciousness, but they are also 

♦See Chapters 19 and 20, Psychology of Suggestion. 

**It is this type of consciousness that answers Prof. 
James’s description of personality. 



88 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


recognized as such. This type of mental activity may be 
represented by the consciousness of the higher vertebrate 
animals. There is here memory, there is the projection of the 
present into the subjective past, there is recognition, but 
there is no self-consciousness, no personality. 

IV. Desultory self-consciousness. This type of self-con¬ 
sciousness has no synthesis in each present moment of the 
preceding past moments of self-consciousness. Such a form 
of consciousness may be regarded as a series of independent, 
instable personalities coming like bubbles to the surface of 
consciousness and bursting without leaving any marked 
trace behind them. It is evident that this type of personality, 
although it has a series of moments, has no memory of that 
series, nor has it any personal identity. 

V. Synthetic self-consciousness. This form of self-con¬ 
sciousness has a series of moments, and all the moments in 
the series can be included in and owned by each present 
moment of selfrconsciousness. The moments in the series 
are intimately linked and intertwined. Each moment synthe- 
tizes, owns, knows, and controls the preceding ones. This 
type of consciousness possesses synthesis, reproduction, 
recognition, personality, personal identity, and is represented 
by man’s mental activity. 

VI. The eternal moment of self-consciousness. In this form 
of self-consciousness there is no series; it is but one moment. 
Memory and personal identity are not present because they 
are superfluous, since there is no preceding series to synthe- 
tize. This type of personality may transcend the synthetic 
personality, as the former may contain the whole content of 
all complete lines of series in one internal moment of self- 
consciousness. This form of self-consciousness may be con¬ 
sidered as the pure type of personality; it is the perfect 
person.* 


*1 must, however, add that this last type of personality is 
purely hypothetical, and if I brought it here it was simply 
to emphasize the pure aspect of personality.— Dr. Sidis. 



THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


89 


In his chapter on Amnesia, Dr. Sidis summarizes all 
the principal forms of subconscious states and all the 
types of amnesia, in the following table: 


of subconscious states: 
Hypnotic. 

Somnambulic. 

Hypnonergic. 

Hypnoid. 

Hypnoidic. 

Hypnoidal. 

Hypnoleptic. 
of Amnesia: 

Reproductive or recurrent. 
Irretraceable or disaggregative. 
Absolute or cy'olastic. 

Simple. 

Recognitive. 

Synthetic. 

Localized. 

Systematized. 

(local. 

| total. 

(local. 

| total. 

General. 

Special. 

Stable. 

Periodic. 

Alternating. 

Progressive. 

Traumatic. 

Toxic. 

Autotoxic. 

Asthenic. 

Emotional or pathematic.* 


Forms 
1 . 

2 . 

3. 

4. 

5. 

6 . 

7. 

Types 
1 . 

2 . 

3. 

4. 

5. 

6 . 

7. 

8 . 

9. Sensory 

10. Motor 

11 . 

12 . 

13. 

14. 

15. 

16. 

17. 

18. 

19. 

20 . 

21 . 


'The Psychology of Suggestion, pages 243 4. 



90 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


Dr. Thomas Parker Boyd says: 

There are three ways of thinking. First, there is the 
thinking done by the objective conscious mind, such as you 
are using while you listen to me and compare it with what 
you have previously thought and known. This you do by 
induction, deduction, comparison, analysis, and synthesis. 
Then there is the subconscious thinking, that part of your 
mental activities which has to do with the dream life, the 
functioning of your bodies, and the instinctive and intuitive 
processes. It thinks in one way only—that of deduction. 
Then there is the superconscious side of thinking, which 
does not reason at all. It simply knows. It is the divine 
mind in man. It is the Christ in you, the anointing which 
abideth, by which you know all things, and need that no man 
teach you. This is one of the tremendous truths which we 
need to know. Man’s real mind is God’s mind, and he knows 
instantly everything, but he does not know that he knows it. 
He is so busy thinking objectively that he does not give the 
Divine Mind in him a chance to thrust its perfect knowledge 
into consciousness. There is a self within you that never 
reasons, never argues, never needs to, because it is at once in 
touch with all truth. 

In this higher realm of divine consciousness, Jesus thought 
and from it. He taught. There is not a logical formula in all 
His teaching. The most tremendous truths are announced 
without the slightest trace of intellectual heat. It is the 
simple statement of the truth as He knew it, and as He was 
it in consciousness. And every word that He spoke has stood 
through the ages because it was the word of truth from God. 
Thinking in this higher realm of consciousness raised the 
vibration of His personality to that level that gave Him 
immunity from contagions, infections, and from the power of 
any material thing. He touched leprosy, and every form of 
disease, not only with immunity, but with power to heal. 

The rate of material vibration determines many things. 
The same rate of vibration that produces heat will not pro¬ 
duce light. You have to raise the rate of vibration to pro- 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


91 


duce light. It is a fact that thinking on the lower or ma¬ 
terial planes produces disease and makes one open to all 
contagion and infection. While thinking on the higher or 
divine side of consciousness raises the rate of vibration to 
immunity from all disease, pain, and weakness, and puts the 
thinker in the place of triumph and power. It raises him 
to that plane of thought and life where he can say, “All 
power in heaven and earth,” that is, in mind and matter, is 
given me. That is man’s right. Jesus vibrated in that 
higher level, and He calls upon us to do the same. If we 
think and work in the lower vibrations, we are filled with 
the reports of pains and ills and things of matter. If we 
think and live on the plane of divine consciousness, our life 
is filled with health, abundance, and power. Can you be 
well? You can, if you will change your thinking. Can you 
be happy? You can, if you will change your thinking. Can 
you be prosperous? Yes; if you will change your thinking. 

The Oriental (philosophers have divided the snhcon¬ 
scious—the other consciousness—into two great areas 
known respectively as the subconscious and supercon¬ 
scious; the subconscious and conscious areas, including 
the lower phases o‘f subconscious mental activity, the 
superconscious area including the higher phases of sub¬ 
conscious mental activity. 

I think, however, that most of the modem psycholo¬ 
gists agree with W. W. Atkinson; he says: 

It has been found more satisfactory to employ the illus¬ 
trative example of the solar spectrum, with its various colors 
with their shadings and blendings—with its “infra-red” 
regions existing in invisbile form on the one side, and its 
“ultra-violet” regions, likewise invisible, existing on the other 
side—with the great visible regions existing in the center. 
While we are favorable to the occasional employment of the 


92 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


term, “the superconsciousness,” to designate the highest of 
the activities of the subconscious, we still prefer the general 
term of “the subconscious” to designate the entire region of 
“the other consciousness” planes of man’s mental activity. 

Many leading writers on the subject of the subconscious 
•have testified to the existence of these planes of its activities 
and powers, and have pointed out the distinction between 
these and the lower planes of its manifestation. They have 
demonstrated that there are “out of consciousness” mental 
operations which are above the horizon of ordinary con¬ 
sciousness, rather than below it—“regions of the higher soul 
and spirit life, of which we are only at times vaguely con¬ 
scious, but which always exist, and link us to eternal 
verities.” They have expressed the conviction that there 
exist in the realm of human mentality certain “supernormal 
and transcendental powers, of which at present we catch 
only occasional glimpses” and that behind these, “there are 
fathomless abysses, the divine ground of the soul, the ulti¬ 
mate reality of which our consciousness is but a reflection, 
or faint perception.” 

In these high regions of mentality, say they, “all the 
higher mental operations are conducted; it is here that 
genius works.” This is the higher mental realm of which 
Carlyle speaks when he says, “Shakespeare's intellect is 
what I call unconscious intellect; there is more virtue in it 
than he himself is aware of. The later generations of men 
will find new meanings in Shakespeare, new elucidations of 
their own human being.” It is this that Goethe had in mind 
when he said: “I prefer that the principle from which, and 
through which I work, shall be hidden from me.” 

It is this to which Ferrier refers when he says: “The 
sublimest works of the intelligence are quite possible, and 
may easily be conceived to be executed, without ordinary 
consciousness of them on the part of the immediate agent.” 
It is this which inspired Emerson to bid us to trust the 
higher consciousness, even “though you can render no rea¬ 
son;” and, whose reports “shall ripen into truth, and you 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


93 


shall know What you believe.” Emerson also hints at the 
same truth in his lines: 

“Delicate omens traced in air, 

To the lone bard true witness bear; 

Birds with auguries on their wings 
Chanted undeceiving things, 

Him to beckon, him to warn; 

Well might then the poet scorn 
To learn of scribe or courier 
Hints writ in vaster character!” 

The lower planes of the subconscious contain only that 
which has been placed there by heredity, by the suggestions 
of others, by the conscious experiences of the individual, or 
by the imperfect reflection of the superconscious faculties 
before the latter have unfolded their message to the con¬ 
scious mentality. The higher regions—the superconscious— 
on the contrary, contain much which man has never before 
experienced consciously or subconsciously. 


94 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


CHAPTER VI 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND—Continued 


Other Names for the Subconscious—What It Is— 
Where It Is—Soul Immortal 

The subconscious hasi been called by a multiplicity 
of names, and their wide variety is indicative of the 
concept of the subconscious in the mind of each par¬ 
ticular author. Some of these names are: 

The involuntary mind; unconscious—sentient—cere¬ 
bration; subliminal mind, meaning “ beneath the thres¬ 
hold ”; the astral self; the subconscious self, sub-being; 
coconscious; area of restricted attention; marginal con¬ 
sciousness; the superconscious; the oversoul; diffused 
consciousnessi below the margin of personal conscious¬ 
ness; consciousness acting below the psycho-physical 
threshold; subjacent strata consciousness; secondary 
consciousness; a diffused consciousness; the subsoil of 
human nature; unconsciousness; a second consciousness; 
cosmieal consciousness; the vital principle; the prin¬ 
ciple of life; communal soul; primary and secondary 
consciousness; under-consciousness; sunken mind; the 
place where we keep our instincts; supernormal con¬ 
sciousness ; ultra-marginal, or outer margin zone; 
actively functioning ideas dissociated from the per¬ 
sonality; the outward observing mind; the “you” or 
the “I”; subconscious personality; the fringe of con- 




THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


95 


sciousness; instinctive mind; the other consciousness; 
the out-of-consciousness. 

The superconscious is also called the divine mind; 
the subconscious is called the subjective mind; and the 
conscious, the objective mind; but in reality there is 
but one mind—God’s mind. The subconscious general¬ 
izes all of these minds, and 'takes in the many, many 
degrees of this one mind. When we speak of the sub¬ 
conscious as knowing all past, present, and future, and 
as having all knowledge by “perception”, this will be 
called by some superconscious—upper degree or higher 
plane of the great subconscious. 

It is 'known by some as the intrinsic power. Others 
try to explain the peculiar functioning of the mind in 
its apparent duality by terming it “below conscious¬ 
ness, ’ 9 or “ threshold of consciousness. ” “ Deeper down, 
higher up, far behind, beyond, out of consciousness,” 
are 'all expressions that have been used to indicate this 
district of the mind. In an effort to understand the 
duality of man, “unconsciousness” may well include 
what has been called “supra,” as well as “sub,” for the 
unconscious mind is equally the home of the highest 
spirit life, and of the directing power of the lowest 
body functions. Call thisi a second consciousness, if 
you will; it is »at any rate a consciousness, of which in 
ordinary life we are wholly unconscious. It can be 
nothing more or less than the unconscious or subcon¬ 
scious mind. 

The subconscious mind may be called the ocean of the 
mind, while the consciousness is but the surface activi¬ 
ties of the subconscious. 


96 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


Ali Nomad says: 

Consciousness may be termed, simply, “the divine spark, 
which enters into every form and phase of manifested life, 
emanating from that one Eternal Power which materialists 
designate as “energy,” and which occultists, both Oriental and 
Occidental, best define as “Aum,” God, the Absolute, the 
Divine Mind, and many other terms. 

Oriental psychologists for many centuries have called 
this secret force within us “our of consciousness ’’ men¬ 
tal planes, states, and processes. 

It is sometimes called the unconscious. This, how¬ 
ever, is not really a good name, for the subconscious¬ 
ness is not unconsciousness. It is rather “the other con¬ 
sciousness.” The ordinary student, in making a care¬ 
ful study of the subconscious mind, must understand all 
of these different names and applications. 

Baudouin explains thus: 

The subconscious (the term does not mean an “inferior 
or subordinate consciousness,” but a “hidden consciousness,” 
a consciousness that lies at a lower level than the familiar 
consciousness of everyday life) is comparable, to use Pierre 
Janet’s simile, to the deeper geological strata, those covered 
by the superficial and only visible stratum, to which latter 
our ordinary consciousness may be compared. . . . 

“Unconscious” is inconvenient because it applies equally 
well to purely physiological processes, to reflex action, to 
mechanical responses to stimuli. If we employ it, we have 
always to specify when we are speaking of a psychological 
unconscious. But in my opinion the term “subconscious” 
can be precisely defined as the psychological unconscious. 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


97 


The word is already current in psychology, and if it be 
clearly defined, no confusion can possibly arise.* 

Dr. Wilfred Lay says: 

The unconscious is not to be regarded as the unknowing 
part of the mind, but only as the unknown part. 

It really means, as Hoffding says, that there is no 
such mental state, no idea that is “unconscious,’’ but 
that there are mental states, ideas, feelings, which, 
though conscious, do not reach self-consciousness. In 
other words, there are in us mental processes which 
have consciousness but no self-consciousness. 

This is, I believe, a much better explanation of the sub¬ 
conscious (unconscious)—mental states which have con¬ 
sciousness, but do not reach the personal consciousness. In 
short, the only possible psychological assumption is a sub¬ 
conscious consciousness. 

Those who accept the division of the subconscious into 
coexisting consciousness, or the coconscious and the uncon¬ 
scious really assume the doctrine of the subconscious. 

Walsh, in “Psychology of Dreams/’ says: 

In a psychological sense, the word unconscious always 
means “not aware of”; ideas of which we have no conscious 
knowledge; which we cannot bring to consciousness volun¬ 
tarily. An unconscious person is entirely oblivious of his 
surroundings, and his feelings; there is no mental perception. 


♦It is essential that writers on these topics should come to 
a definite understanding in regard to the use of these words. 
Bernheim, in a recently published work (Automatisme et 
suggestion, Alcan, Paris, 1917), is frequently the victim of a 
confusion in terms. He identifies the “subconscious” with a 
vague “consciousness.”— Baudouin. 



98 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


Ali Nomad mentions many names for the same con¬ 
cept : 

The evolution of an individual is accomplished when he has 
learned through the various avenues of experience, the fact 
of his own godhood; and when he has established his union 
with that indescribable spiritual essence which is called Om; 
God; Nirvana; Samadhi; Brahm; Kami; Allah; and the 
Absolute. 

A Japanese term is “Dai Zikaku.” The Zen, sect of Japa¬ 
nese Buddhists say “Daigo Tettei,” and one who has attained 
to this superior phase of consciousness is called Sho-Nin., 
meaning literally “Above man.” 

Emerson, the great American seer, expressed this Nameless 
One, as the Oversoul; and Herbert Spencer, the intellectual 
giant of England, used the term universal Energy. 

Emerson was a seer; Spencer was a scientist, which word, 
until recently, was a synonym for materialist. 

But what are words? 

Mere symbols of consciousness, and subject to change and 
evolvement, as man's consciousness evolves. The student of 
truth will recognize in these different words, exactly the 
same meaning. The “eternal energy from which all things 
proceed” Is a phrase identical with “The Oversoul,” or “The 
Absolute,” from which all manifestation comes. 

It is true that certain psychologists deny the uncon¬ 
scious part of the mind. They take refuge in the belief 
that the unconscious antecedents of conscious mental 
processes are not mental at all, but are purely physio¬ 
logical processes in the nervous tissue of the brain, and 
after these psychologists get through with their long 
denial of the subconscious, they always have some other 
activity of the brain which, when simmered down to 
fine points, is really another expression for the subcon¬ 
scious. 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


99 


But modem research has abundantly demonstrated 
the evidence, and the enormous importance of the sub¬ 
conscious mental processes. No less an authority than 
Boris Sidis says that “the subconscious is as necessary 
as ether;” while <as quoted above, the late Professor 
James says: “This is the greatest discovery of a hun¬ 
dred years”. There are some few who try to climb 
over the back fence, to get into the psychological front 
door yard; and the reader, because of the vast amount 
of evidence already gathered, may put it down as a 
self-evident fact that the subconscious mind is in reality 
all that its exponents claim, and go on his merry way, 
rejoicing. This critical angle of the subconscious mind 
has been most successfully refuted by A. J. Tansley, 
in “The New Psychology and Its Relation to Life”, 
Chapter II, should the reader like to delve further into 
the argumentative side of the subconscious. 

Atkinson, in “Mind and Body,” says: 

The best authorities now generally agree that there is no 
part of the body which may be considered as devoid of mind. 
The subconscious mind is not confined to the brain, or even 
the greater plexuses of the nervous system, but extends to all 
parts of the body, to every nerve, muscle, and even to every 
cell and cell group of the body. The functions and processes 
of the body are no longer considered as purely mechanical, 
or chemical, but are now seen to be the result of mental 
action of some kind or degree. Therefore, in considering 
the subconscious mind, one must not think of it as resident 
in the brain alone, but rather as being distributed over the 
entire physical body. There is mind in every cell, every 
organ, every muscle, every nerve—in every part of the body. 


100 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


Dr. Boris Sidis takes the view that while certain 
processes of mind may he dependent upon definite brain 
areas, the mind process is not located in any definite 
brain centre. Dr. Sidis says: 

A fallacy prevalent among the medical profession and now 
also extant among the populace is the placing of psychic life 
in the brain. The neurologist and the pathologist ridicule 
the old Greek belief that the place of the mind is in the 
heart. Modern science has discovered that the heart is noth¬ 
ing but a hollow muscle, a blood pump at best; the place 
of mental processes is in the brain. This medical belief 
now circulating in the popular and semi-scientific literature 
of today, differs but little from the ancient Greek belief; it 
is just as fallacious and superstitious. It is true that psychic 
life is a concomitant variable function of nervous processes 
and brain activity, but neurosis is not the cause of psychosis. 
The brain does not secrete thought as the liver secretes bile. 
The mind is not in the brain, nor, in fact, is the mind any¬ 
where in the universe of space, for psychosis is not at all a 
physical spatial process. 

As fallacious and superstitious is the recent tendency of 
medical investigation to localize psychic processes, to place 
different psychic processes in different seats or localities of 
the brain, thus implying that each psychic process respect¬ 
ively is placed inside some cerebral center or nerve cells. 
Psychic life is no doubt the concomitant of nervous brain 
activity, and certain psychic processes may depend on definite 
local brain processes, but the given psychic process is not 
situated in a definite brain center, nor, for that matter, is it 
situated anywhere in space. 

Sustaining the theory that it is the subconscious that 
is our immortal element, Dr. Winbigler expresses his 
opinion thus: 

The subconscious mind is the part of our nature that will 
survive the shock of death. The conscious mind and the 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


101 


physical body are essential for our present environment. The 
powers and characteristics of the subconscious mind will be 
probably manifested through a spiritual body which will be 
adapted to a spiritual or heavenly environment. Herein, we 
shall find the realization of immortality, freedom from all 
pain, sickness, and death. There will be the possibility of 
going from place to place; knowing God intuitively, able to 
communicate directly with Him as others without any physi¬ 
cal means, as now; seeing without the physical eyes; hearing 
without the physical ears; knowing without the physical 
brain. Spiritual perception and faith will be spiritual sight 
and realization. Immortality has in it the implication that 
the real person does not only pass beyond the power of death, 
but is eternally happy and blessed with the possibility of 
continuing on to know what God has done and so becoming 
more and more like Him in life, spirit, and work. 

The idea that the subconscious mind is the soul of 
man and a distinct entity from the conscious mind, has 
been better stated in more recent years by Professor 
Joseph Jastrow, when he says; 

The conscious and the subconscious (if we may clothe these 
aspects of our mental life in substantive form) are but two 
souls with but a single thought, for the simple reason that 
they are but one soul, and the unity of their heartbeat is 
inherent in the organism that gives them life. 

Dr. Winbigler enlarges upon this: 

The conscious mind is logical in its processes of thought, 
and has the ability to reason inductively and deductively, 
analytically and synthetically. The conscious mind deliberates 
on suggestions or impressions, co-ordinates, and communi¬ 
cates them through the cerebro-spinal system to the ganglia 
of the sympathetic system, and therein and therefrom im¬ 
presses the subconscious mind. We, therefore conclude that 


102 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


the conscious mind has the power of beneficially or adversely 
affecting the various organs of the body through the subcon¬ 
scious mind. The conscious mind is the outgrowth of the 
subconscious in order that man may adapt himself to his 
present environment and struggle. 

Ramacharaka says, in “Psychic Healing”: 

The instinctive mind is not confined to the brain as a seat 
of operations, but is distributed over the entire nervous 
system, the spinal column and solar plexus being important 
centers for its operations—and every cell of the body. 

And Dr. Walsh, in “The Psychology o'f Dreams,” 
says: 

The mind is intact, one structure. Anatomically we would • 
be unable to locate the position of any of these minds, but 
such a division is very convenient for understanding the 
various mental phenomena. 

Dr. Thomas Parkeir Boyd, in “The Voice Eternal,” 
also supports this theory: 

The conscious side of the mind does not seem to have any 
existence apart from the union of these two. The child 
begins to develop consciousness when the light falls on the 
eye, or when, after repeated experiences, it becomes conscious 
of its mother as the source of nutrition. And so step by 
step the conscious mind as a function of this union of a 
spiritual and material being is developed. With its various 
methods of reasoning it is fitted to exercise the office of 
monitor in this world of truth and error, but will be unnec¬ 
essary in a world where only truth exists. In the day when 
this union is dissolved, this function ceases and its thoughts 
perish. The subconscious is the real immortal, spiritual part 
of us. It is this with, which the infinite Spirit is identified 
and inseparably joined. It is through the subconscious that 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


103 


the spirit manifests forth himself in the form of flesh and 
blood. It is here that the elements of the divine character 
are developed. The part played by the conscious mind in this 
process is pictured out in the 32d chapter of Exodus, where 
objective Moses argues with subjective Moses and points out 
to him a better way. All the tides of the Infinite life move 
into us from the subjective side, and are guided and used 
under the direction of the objective side. 

Dr. Winbigler says: 

The conscious mind recognizes the external world and uses 
the five senses as channels through which to gather knowledge, 
and by means of which to adapt the person’s life to the present 
environment. It is dependent upon the normal functioning 
of the nervous system. Its chief and highest characteristics 
are accumulation and utilization of knowledge, reasoning, 
and volition. 

And we fin'd agreement with this in “Psychic Science 
Made Plain, ” by Warman: 

The conscious mind is the function of the physical brain. 
Its media are the five physical senses. It comes with the 
body, develops with the body, perishes with the body. 

So we see that the conscious mind is in the physical 
brain and depends upon the brain as a medium of action 
and life, and that it possesses no powers whatever inde¬ 
pendent of the physical organization. 

Hudson also locates the conscious mind in the physi¬ 
cal brain, and says: 

Its powers wholly depend upon the physical condition of 
the brain. They decline as the body weakens. They become 
deranged and useless as the brain becomes disorganized from 


104 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


physical causes. Its distinctive functions pertain solely to 
physical existence. It has the power of independent inductive 
reasoning to compensate for its total want of power to per¬ 
ceive by intuition. Inductive reasoning is merely a laborious 
method of inquiry, and pertains wholly to our physical 
existence. 

But the subconscious mind, or soul, does not depend 
upon the brain for existence only while in the flesh. 
It lives forever. It is the immortal part of man, and 
is capable of sustaining an existence independently 
of the body. 

And with reference to that degree of mind which is 
immortal, Hudson says: 

It is not for man to question the wisdom of God in so or¬ 
daining the relations of the soul to the body, but it is man’s 
duty so to exercise his powers of induction as to ascertain 
the relations of the two. Then having done so, according to 
his lights, so to order his conduct as to do his whole duty 
to himself, and his Creator. 

And Warman, in “Psychic Science Made Plain,” 
takes us one step farther: 

The subjective mind is of the soul. The soul is a distinct 
entity, and as such possesses independent powers and func¬ 
tions, having a mental organization of its own. 

And Dr. Winbigler summarizes the matter thus: 

To sum up in part, the subconscious mind governs and 
controls all of the vital functions of the body automatically, 
and its highest powers are instinct or intuition, faith, spirit¬ 
ual perception, telepathic power, clairvoyant ability, and at 
times absolution from physical or bodily limitation; and it is 
also the seat of the emotional life and perfect memory. 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


105 


The subconscious can be made to serve in all depart¬ 
ments of life, and the wisdom of taking advantage of 
this fact, is expressed by Dr. Winbigler in the follow¬ 
ing: 

. . . but the subconscious mind deals with the intuitive 
and the spiritual side of life and works out plans and pur¬ 
poses that are far beyond the ordinary. It deals' with the 
fundamental and enduring things of life, and he is unwise 
who does not heed its warnings and follow its directions. 
This is true in all spheres of life. There is nothing to lose 
but much to be gained by a scientific training of the sub¬ 
conscious mind, and power can be obtained by educating it 
which no one knows who has not had experience in this 
matter.* 

The extensive activities of the subconscious mind are 
enumerated in part by Dr. Winbigler. He says: 

It is this mind that carries on the work of assimilation 
and unbuilding whilst we sleep. . . . 

It reveals to us things that the conscious mind has no con¬ 
ception of until the consummations have occurred. 

It can communicate with other minds without the ordinary 
physical means. 

It gets glimpses of things that ordinary sight does not 
behold. 

It makes God’s presence an actual, realizable fact, and 
keeps the personality in peace and quietness. 

It warns of approaching danger. 

It approves or disapproves of a course of conduct and con¬ 
versation. 

It carries out all the best things which are given to it, 
providing the conscious mind does not intercept and change 
the course of its manifestation. 


♦See Practical Psychology and Sex Life. 



106 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


It heals the body and keeps It in health, if it is at all en¬ 
couraged. 

Whilst it is not open to introspection, yet it proves to be 
a retentive power making retrospection possible. 

It possesses creative energy of thought in every department 
of life and practice. 

It is powerful in the formation of habits, the causation 
and cure of many abnormal conditions and disorders. 

What you want done, subconscious will ido it. 

Do you want to change your position? Subconscious 
mind will do it. 

What do you want most ? Command the subconscious 
mind, as directed in the preceding chapter and it will 
bring it to pass. 

Do you want to be proficient in your work? The 
Subconscious mind will do it. 

Would you have initiative? The subconscious mind 
will accomplish your desire. 

Would you be beautiful? Leave it to the subcon¬ 
scious mind. 

Would you always remain young? The subconscious 
mind will give you youth. 

Do you want to raise money for any particular pro¬ 
ject, to pay debts or to be used in any way to further 
your life’s ambition or business? The subconscious 
mind will be your (promoter. 

Would you have judgment? To give you judgment 
is the province of the subconscious mind. 

Would you be happy in your domestic relationship? 
The subconscious mind will be the adjuster. 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


107 


Would you have knowledge without high school or 
college training? The subconscious mind will direct 
and igive you original knowledge. 

Are you in any way fearful; afraid in the dark; 
afraid to plan larger things; afraid of success? The 
subconscious mind will drive out all fear. 

Are you timid or self-conscious? The subconscious 
mind will eliminate all weakness. 

Would you be liked by every one? The subconscious 
mind will turn the trick. 

Would you have health ? Leave it to the subconscious 
mind. 

In short, anything that you want, the subconscious 
mind will do for you.* 

Dr. Winbigler says: 

The subconscious mind has, under certain conditions, the 
power of clairvoyance, clairaudience, kinetic and telepathic 
energy. The conscious mind uses the cerebro-spinal nervous 
system and is dependent largely upon that as an instrument 
of manifestation, but the subconscious mind seems to mani¬ 
fest its phenomena and power independently of, and at times 
contrary to, the working of the brain and spinal nerves. It 
probably uses directly the sympathetic nervous system and 
has an independent functioning entity or force. 

Dr. Hudson emphasizes the importance of the sub¬ 
conscious, in the following: 

It should be remembered always that the power of the 
subjective entity is the most potential force in nature, and 


♦This is another subject which, because of its length, must 
be necessarily omitted in this volume. It is dealt with at 
length in Practical Psychology and Sex Life, by the author. 



108 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


when intelligently directed, the most beneficent. But, like 
every other power in nature misdirected, its destructive force 
is equally potent. 

“Man lives, moves and has his being’’ in the great 
subconscious mind of the universe. We cannot get 
away from this mind any more than East can touch 
West; but we can operate this mind understanding^ 
and put this mind—the Power within, God—to work 
for us until wonders and “miracles” may be performed 
by the genius which is asleep in our subconscious minds. 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


109 


CHAPTER YII 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND—Continued 


Its Many Functions—How It Works—Intuition— 
Memory—Psychoanalysis and the 
Subconscious 

Not only does the subconscious mind control our 
involuntary actions, but it is the seat of memory. It 
is believed that the subconscious mind of each individual 
has stored within it the memory of every experience of 
the human race, from the time that Man first began 
to evolve from the protoplasmic state of a jelly fish, 
through his “monkey” (tree) evolution, through his 
cave-dwelling years, his Indian-tribe scalp-hunting trips, 
through the superstitious practices of heathenism, down 
to his present status. Be that as it may, your subcon¬ 
scious mind is the storehouse of memory. 

The subconscious mind, being the storehouse of all 
memory, has a peculiar faculty which appears to con¬ 
vey to its possessor the history of inanimate objects. 
For instance, give a person a mineralogical specimen, 
or a fragment of some historical structure, and if clair- 
voyantly inclined, the percipient may give a minute 
description of all that has affected its formation, 




110 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


growth, 'or history, as well as the changes which it has 
undergone from the remotest times.* 

The subconscious mentality is mostly concerned with 
the activities of the emotional nature. It might be said 
that all material of the emotional activities is stored 
on the planes and levels of the subconscious mind. 

That something within us which, we call ‘ ‘ instinct, ’ ’ 
and which plays so very important a part in the life 
of main, is in the regions of the subconscious mentality. 

Not only is the subconscious mind the seat of 
memory, but it has a most peculiar and specific method 
of its own of indexing, cross-filing, and bringing to 
the surface anything which the conscious mind may 
desire. For example, sometimes the conscious mind is 
desirous of recalling an event of many years ago. Try 
as hard as you can, it is not taken from the pigeon¬ 
hole of memory; for the time being you go about your 
work thinking of something else. The attention which 
you have given this, however, has reached the sub¬ 
conscious mind and its filing and indexing system has 
been started, and the first thing you know, without 
again bringing your conscious mind to the point of 

*See “The Souls of Things,” by Denton, and “The Law of 
Psychic Phenomena,” by Hudson. 

All mediumistic thought transference and thought reading 
arise from subconscious reflex action or condition. For study 
of this, see ‘«The Law of Psychic Phenomena,” by Hudson, 
and “Mind Power Plus” articles, by E. Carriero, “Mind Power 
Plus” for March, April, and May, 1923. 

Phantasms of the dead, or ghosts also betray the ferment of 
a subconscious condition. See “The Law of Psychic Phenom¬ 
ena,” by Hudson. 



THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


111 


recollection, that which you wanted, suddenly pops up 
into consciousness, and comes to the surface above. 

We have already said hypnosis is the suspension of 
the conscious mind. An hypnotic subject is active only 
in the subconscious mind. 

Dreams are all in the subconscious mind. 

You go to bed at night and awaken without the alarm 
clock at 6 :30 in the morning. You do this regularly. 
This is the functioning of the subconscious mind. 

H. C. Sheppard tells an interesting incident in the 
psychological experience of William Gribbs McAdoo, 
former 'Secretary of the United States Treasury: 

From the New York Sun, we glean that Mr. McAdoo, while 
in office was wont to retire at midnight, “turn his affairs 
over to his subconscious mind, and go to sleep.” Says the 
Sun further: “With many men who think deeply, the sub¬ 
conscious mind takes over many of the day’s problems and 
gives back the answer at unexpected moments. Mr. McAdoo 
has found that his mind is up to such tricks, and he places 
a tablet and pencil beside his bed. He is awakened at night 
by reports from this busy mind, and he jots down on the pad 
notes bearing upon the questions. In the morning he goes 
to his office and once he has started the machinery, he pulls 
out of his side coat pocket a number of sheets of paper from 
the ‘night ledger’. On the sheets are rude notes. One will 
bear the name of a man. Another will have a few figures; 
another will have a single word. But these notes bring back 
to him the thoughts, etc.” 

Dr. Alfred Schofield bears witness to the same prin¬ 
ciple : 

I directed a baby to be fed every two hours by day, and 
every four hours by night, by the clock; and six weeks after, 


112 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


the baby woke naturally at night within five minutes of the 
time. 

In explaining the apprehension which the subcon¬ 
scious has of time, Dr. Boyd says : 

Of the measurement of time by the subjective mind, Pro¬ 
fessor James says: 

Recent observations made on hysterical and hypnotic sub¬ 
jects prove the existence of a highly developed consciousness 
in places where it has hitherto not been suspected at all. 

Almost all investigators of sleep phenomena have noticed 
this natural faculty of the subjective stratum to measure time 
without the aid of an instrument. Any person can develop 
this ability so as to awaken at a fixed time. The subjective 
mind must be trusted with the charge given to it, but artificial 
means should not be relied upon or used, or the dependence 
will be fixed upon the artificial instead of the subcon¬ 
scious servant. If the subjective mind is left solely to attend 
to the matter it will measure off the time instead of waiting 
for a signal. 

Apropos of this, Albert B. Olston tells us this story: 

A friend of mine told me an interesting circumstance illus¬ 
trative of the watchfulness of the subconscious. He was in 
the government employ as a teacher of Indian schools. 

In the morning, three bells were rung about fifteen min¬ 
utes apart. The first bell was for the Indian children to get 
up. The second bell was for those employees who did not 
have early morning duties. The third bell called all to break¬ 
fast. He found that he could arise at the ringing of the 
third bell and get to breakfast with the rest of his mess. 
When he first entered the service, the first of the three bells 
awakened him. He soon, however, got so that he could sleep 
during the ringing of the first bell and awoke when the 
second bell was rung. It was not long until he would not 
awake at the ringing of either of the first two bells, but 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


113 


would awake promptly when the third bell was sounded. 
His subjective mind heard all three bells and only aroused 
the normal consciousness when the desired signal was 
sounded. Fail to obey an alarm clock for a few mornings, 
and that servant, the subjective mind, will act as though its 
office had been outraged, and will not call the normal mind to 
consciousness. Make the desire strong that the alarm shall 
awaken one, and it will have that effect. 

It has frequently been noticed that animals have the faculty 
of measuring time. Dr. Clarpenter tells of a stork in a Swiss 
town that would collect the fowls from the street at a cer¬ 
tain time every day. He also tells of a case that came under 
his personal supervision: Some school girls were in the 
habit of eating their dinners under the trees in a certain 
part of the grounds. It was soon observed that the sparrows 
would collect about the place a few minutes before the girls 
would come to eat their dinners. After they went away the 
sparrows would feed upon the crumbs. On Sundays there 
was no congregation of sparrows at the noon hour, for the 
girls never ate their dinner there on that day. 

In “The Mental Highway,’’ Dr. Thomas Parker 
Boyd says: 

One can practice imagining the face of a clock in the mind, 
with the idea of seeing where the hands stand, and in a short 
time can look within and know the exact time. The less there 
is of any objective conscious mental action, the more exact 
will be the results. If we try to calculate by conscious mental 
methods the passage of time, it becomes a species of guess¬ 
ing, but as soon as we acquire skill in letting the subcon¬ 
scious register, we have an absolute timepiece within. 

This is more or less a reflection or image of the power of 
Divine Mind with which “a thousand years are as a day,” 
etc. Absolute Mind or subconscious mind, is an eternal now. 
There are no yesterdays nor tomorrows in the Absolute Mind. 
Occasionally some seer or prophet will get the mists of 
matter cleared away, and the Divine Mind within will function 


114 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


on its superconscious or divine plane, and lie will see things 
as present in Absolute Mind which are a thousand years in 
the future in the time as measured by human experience. 

In like manner there is in the subconscious a sense of abso¬ 
lute space. In Absolute Mind there is no hither and yon. 
There is only the here. Frequently I have had a clairvoyant 
in the moments of deepest and clearest perception exclaim, 
“Everywhere is here!” meaning that in mind there is no space. 
When thinking of a friend, you do not have to project your 
thought across space. You merely call the name of your 
friend and he is present This brings into sight the kinship 
in all mind, for in Absolute Mind there is no up nor down, 
in nor out, here nor there, only here and now in space and 
time. 

Dr. Hereward Carrington explains how the muscular 
system also sometimesi comes under the control of the 
subconscious: 

Occasionally the muscular system becomes active during 
sleep, instead of ithe senses only, and then we have cases of 
somnambulism, in which the patient walks and talks in his 
sleep, etc., and even does consecutive mental work. This 
shows a too active condition of his subconscious mind, which 
should be checked by proper treatment. It is extremely dan¬ 
gerous to wake any one suddenly in the middle of an access 
of somnambulism. If the patient talks in his sleep, it may 
be very interesting, at times, to converse with him in a low 
tone and see whether or not he will reply intelligently. Many 
cases are on record in which valuable information has been 
obtained in this way, not only about the subject, but about 
distant scenes and even about his spirit friends. 

It is possible, also, to cultivate automatic writing with a 
good somnambulist, and, in one case known to us, the patient 
went to bed with a planchette board tied to her hand, the 
pencil resting on a large sheet of paper, and when she awoke 
in the morning it was covered with interesting messages. 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


115 


This is an experience which the enthusiastic student would 
do well to repeat. 

It is recorded that the receptivity of the subcon¬ 
scious has been utilized by students of radio at the 
Pensacola naval air station, to increase the speed of 
backward students. By charging the subconscious of 
the students while asleep, it was found that some of 
the backward students increased their speed about 
thirty per cent. Before the students went to bed, they 
adjusted their head receivers, and while they slept, an 
expert operator sent in messages at a rate of ten words 
faster than their ability to receive. It was discovered 
that, during their conscious hours, they could receive 
messajges at the speed sent to them while they slept. 

Paul Bousfteld illustrates this: 

Let us now take another example of work which the uncon¬ 
scious mind is called upon to perform; an example which we 
are accustomed to view without question or thought, which is 
comparatively commonplace, and which we dismiss summarily 
by referring to it as “habit”. The accomplished pianist reads 
the music in front of him consciously, but he is not conscious 
of the extremely rapid translation which takes place from the 
brain to the fingers, so as to produce complicated movements 
on the keyboard. And if we examine it carefully, we shall 
find that something very wonderful has actually taken place 
outside his consciousness. When he was first learning to play, 
he looked at the note on his music, and said to himself: 
“That is C.” He looked at the key on .the piano, and re¬ 
peated: “That is C.” He was taught that a particular finger 
must be placed on that particular note when playing in a cer¬ 
tain key. He was taught that it had to be hit in a particular 
way and held down for a particular time, according to the size 
and shape of the note he was reading on the sheet of music 


116 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


in front of him. He was further taught that in order to 
modify any sound in a particular manner, he could use his 
feet on one or other of the pedals, and must be extremely 
careful to put his feet down and lift his feet up again at 
exactly the right moment. He was taught that when certain 
symbols, known as sharps and flats, preceded the notes at 
the beginning of his piece of music, the whole scheme of 
fingering would be different. And, at first, he had laboriously 
to go through the process of watching first the music and 
then the keyboard, and of thinking at each point what he 
should do with his fingers and with his feet, and how he 
should do it, and for what period he should keep on: doing it. 
Now, the whole process is gone through with half-a-million 
notes which he has never seen before, many of them played 
simultaneously, and with an exactitude which he never 
attained when he was consciously thinking. Whatever may 
be the nature of the unconscious action which is taking place, 
all he has in consciousness is the music in front oif him, and 
the final sound that he is producing, together with the emo¬ 
tions which these called forth in him as a result of the whole. 

All wonderful feats are performed in the subcon¬ 
scious mind. Every great virtuoso performs or enacts 
his wondrous performances in the subconscious mind. 
No conscious mind ever yet has had the rapidity of 
action sufficient to enable its possessor to play the whole 
score of II Trovatore; the performance is done in the 
subjective mind. A person may play selections from the 
masters and carry on a conversation at the same time. 
He is executing the musical score by the habit of the 
subconscious mind, while he is conversing with the con¬ 
scious. 

In 1896 I held the championship of the world for daTe- 
devil bicycle riding (this was unofficial as I did not ride 
under the auspices of any society). This feat I am telling 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


117 


about was performed in the subconscious mind. I had 
heard that others had ridden down the chute-the-chutes 
on a bicycle. The other riders had sat on the saddle, 
put their feet over the handle-bars, made the dash down 
the steep incline, and as the bicycle came to the end 
of the chute it dropped from under the rider, whose 
feet extended over the handle-bar, thus putting him in a 
sitting position so that he scooted, in this position, a 
few feet out upon the water. 

When I heard that others had ridden the chute- 
the-chutes on a bicycle with feet extended over the 
handle-bar, coming down lickety-split, with the bicycle 
dropping from under them as it got to the edge of the 
water, I went them one better by pedaling my machine 
down this steep incline. 

The chute-the-chutes was an amusement arrangement 
which was supposed to give one thrills and, from the 
shouts of the women and the cries of the men as they 
made their dash down the steep incline, it lived up to 
its reputation as a thriller. 

This amusement device was of the shape of a boat 
which ran on wheels. This boat on wheels was guided 
to an elevator; the elevator lifted the boat, with its 
human freight, away up into the air and then the boat 
ran down a steep incline, at an angle of about forty-five 
degrees, on the wheels, making a quick sudden descent, 
which gave the joy-riders a sensation similar to the 
quick drop of an elevator. The descent was so quick 
and so rapid that the people in the boat would catch 
their breath, gasp for air, scream with excitement, grab 
their hats in half-terrified frenzy as the boat rushed 


118 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


down the chutes at breakneck speed. At the bottom 
of the chute was a lake or body of water, and when the 
boat finished its descent on the track of the chute, it 
would plunge out upon the water. 

Did you ever go a mile a minute on a bicycle ? That’s 
what I did on the chute-the-chutes. By the time I got 
half-way down, I was going so fast I had no more 
breath in me—for a breath-taker, it beats an elevator by 
a whole lot. If you don’t believe it, try it. I rode a 
bicycle with 84 gear, so that by the time I reached the 
bottom of this incline, making my whirling, dizzy 
descent down the chute, my feet were going around 
faster than man could count; faster than man’s con¬ 
scious mind could follow. At the end of the chute, 
I made a dive from my bicycle and shot, by the force 
of the spring from the pedal, forty feet through the 
air and dived into a lake of water only four feet deep 
(about up to your waist) ; and this body of water had 
a plank bottom. When you dive through the air at a 
distance of forty feet, you have some momentum by 
the time you hit the water; and if your dive should be 
too straight and your head hit that plank, it would be 
about the last time that you would take your forty-foot 
dive. 

When this act was performed, every other amusement 
in this great park in the East was at a standstill; it was 
performed during the intermission of the band. The 
iscenic railway, the popcorn stands, the X-ray and the 
maze-of-life—all other amusements, to the very last 
one, were at a standstill by the order of the park author¬ 
ities. The big feature was on, “The Boy Wonder” 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


119 


making his daring leap down the dizzy chutes. As many 
as eighty thousand people at a time witnessed this feat 
which was never attempted or performed by any other 
living human, so far as we know. 

When I got within twenty feet of the end of the chute, 
my feet whirling around as fast as a circular saw buzz¬ 
ing its way through an Oregon pine, there was a little 
“something’’ within which told me when to make my 
leap. What was it? It was the prompting of the sub¬ 
conscious mind, for a thousand conscious minds—all 
combined—never could have acted with the quickness, 
alertness and precision necessary to make that leap. 
That “something” which prompted the leap and the 
dive, as the pedals whirled around in their rapid pace, 
within a thousandth part of a second, was the subcon¬ 
scious mind. All feats are performed in the subcon¬ 
scious mind. 

The subconscious mind is the seat of habit. It is 
the fountain of practical initiative and of the construc¬ 
tive forces of life. 

“On the spiritual side, it is the source of ideas, in¬ 
spiration, imagination, and the channel through which 
we recognize and find Divinity; and in proportion as 
we recognize this Divinity, do we come into the under¬ 
standing of this source of power.” 

In “The Subconscious Mind,” Dr. A. T. Schofield, an 
eminent medical authority, says: 

No general fact is so well established by the experience of 
mankind, or so universally accepted as a guide in the affairs 
of life as that of unconscious mental life and action.* 


*Dr. T. Laycock, Mind and Brain, vol. I, page 161. 



120 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


Intuition, or the ‘‘hunch,” is common to almost all 
persons, and Dr. Boyd explains! what this is, thus: 

When one is thinking consciously and there arises what we 
call a “hunch”, then the subconscious is thrusting its action 
into the thought. Or if there is some truth appears that is 
not the result of logical process but rather is an intuition, 
then the superconscious is mingling its action. 

Paul Bousfield agrees, in the following language: 

So-called intuition is, to a large extent, merely rapid un¬ 
conscious reasoning, in which minute details are taken into 
consideration by the unconscious, and only the final opinion 
presented to consciousness. 

Says Dr. Gustave Geley: 

Intuition is the very essence of subconsciousness. . . . 

The subconscious reveals itself not by inspiration and intui¬ 
tion alone, but also by frequent intrusions of emotional, 
aesthetic, or religious thought. Unexpected decisions, abrupt 
changes of opinion, many unreasoned feelings, originate 
largely in subconsciousness or from subconscious collabora¬ 
tion. Who can say if even some ideas which seem to us the 
result of reason, may not be the flowering of an invisible and 
subconscious growth? 

Finally, all the foundations of our being, thatt. which is the 
principal part of the self, innate capacities, good or bad dispo¬ 
sitions, character—all that makes the essential difference be¬ 
tween one mind and another; all that is not the results of 
personal effort, of education, or of surrounding examples—are 
modes of subconsciousness. 

In Baud'ouin’s study of the philosophy of Bergson, 
he arrived at this conclusion: 

Bergson has founded his philosophy upon the distinction 
between intelligence and intuition. The latter slumbers in 
the depths of our being. It seems to possess much of the 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


121 


knowledge which is of the greatest importance to life. By 
the study of intuition* we are able Ito solve certain problems 
which we might never have been able to solve on purely 
intellectualist lines. 

Of the intuitive (powers of the subconscious, Dr. Win- 
bigler says: 

It . . . does its highest and best work when the conscious 
mind is quiescent or passive. It perceives by intuition, exer¬ 
cises at itimes kinetic energy, sees without the physical eyes, 
hears without the physical ears, possesses absolute character¬ 
istics under certain conditions, has power to communicate 
and receive messages, thoughts, and impressions, telepathic- 
ally; and it has the ability of existing independently of the 
body. 

This mind is the real self and in it is found the true measure 
of viability and the possibility of immortality. 

From Dr. Schofield’s book, “The Unconscious 
Mind,” we quote thus: 

We are all aware, when we think at all, how dependent 
we are upon the unconscious; and the greater, the nobler, the 
more brilliant are our thoughts and qualities, the more is it 
obvious to ourselves that their origin lies beyond our ken. 
We continually hear voices within addressing us; we wish 
to do a certain thing, and are conscious of being, opposed and 
hindered by some impulses from the unknown; or on the 
other hand we have no wish or desire to do a certain act 
which nevertheless we feel impelled by some hidden influence 
to do. We consciously see, hear, taste, touch, smell; but every 
object so perceived is at once apperceived unconsciously; in 
other words, our whole enjoyment and understanding of the 
light, or sound message, is derived from the added informa- 


*For a more complete study of intuition see Practical Psy¬ 
chology and Sex /Life, by author of Fundamentals of Prac¬ 
tical Psychology. 



122 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


tion respecting it at once given by the unconscious mind. 
As we have seen, to us by this means, a hard yellow circle is 
at once a wedding ring with all its associations; which it is 
not to a child, who has mere perception of it; a short black 
line is a needle with all its characteristics, at once uncon¬ 
sciously added to the mere perception, that alone is imprinted 
on the retina; a mere footfall causes our hearts to thrill, our 
pulse to quicken, our feelings to be joyful, all through apper¬ 
ception. Consciously we find ourselves endowed with tact, 
instinct, sense of the beautiful in art, in music, etc.; endow¬ 
ments that we all use and are grateful for, but use largely 
unconsciously, and of whose origin or dwelling-place we are 
wholly unconscious. 

The value of the unconscious not only to consciousness 
but to the man himself is enormous. It guides him aright 
when otherwise he would go wrong, it inspires him, it warns 
him, it furnishes him, with names, facts, and scenes from 
the stores of memory. It is really not only the guiding power 
of the body; accomplishing tasks so intricate, that no con¬ 
scious mind, even if it had the power, has the capacity for; 
but it also guides behind the scenes the direction of his 
thoughts, his tastes—in short, not only his physical, but 
largely his psychical life. 

Listen to Hartmann, on the subject: 

The unconscious often guides men in their actions by hints 
and feelings, when they could not help themselves by con¬ 
scious thought. The unconscious furthers (the conscious 
process of thought by its inspirations in small as in great 
matters, and, in mysticism, guides mankind to the present¬ 
ment of higher, supersensible unities. The unconscious makes 
men happy through the feeling for the beautiful and artistic. 
If we institute a comparison between the conscious and un¬ 
conscious, it is obvious there is a sphere which is always re¬ 
served to the unconscious because it remains forever inacces¬ 
sible to the conscious. Secondly, we find a sphere which, in 
certain beings only, belongs to the unconscious, but in others 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


123 


is also accessible to consciousness. Further, if in man we 
consider the sphere belonging both to the unconscious and also 
to consciousness, this much is certain: that everything which 
any consciousness has power to accomplish, can be executed 
equally well by the unconscious. This convenience of 
abandoning oneself to the unconscious is tolerably familiar, 
hence the conscious use of reason is so decried by the indolent. 

That the unconscious can really outdo all the performances 
of conscious reason is seen in those fortunate natures that 
possess everything that others must acquire by toil, who never 
have a struggle with conscience, because they always spon¬ 
taneously act correctly with feeling, and can never comport 
themselves otherwise than with tact, learn everything easily, 
complete everything they begin with a happy knack, live in 
eternal harmony with themselves, without ever reflecting much 
what they do, or ever experiencing difficulty and toil. The 
fairest specimens of these instinctive natures are only seen in 
women. But what disadvantage lies in this self-surrender to 
the unconscious? This: that one never knows where 
one is, or what one has; that one gropes in the dark, while 
one has got the lantern of consciousness in one’s pocket; that 
it is left to accident whether the inspiration of the uncon¬ 
scious will come when one wants it; that one has no criterion 
but success. The conscious is an ever-ready servant, whose 
obedience may be always compelled; the unconscious protects 
us like a fairy, and has always something uncomfortably 
demoniac about it. I may be proud of the work of conscious¬ 
ness, as my own deed, the fruit of my own hard labor; the 
fruit of the unconscious is, as it were, a gift of the gods; it 
can therefore only teach him humility. The unconscious is 
complete from top to toe, and must therefore be taken just 
as it is. The conscious judges, improves itself, and can be 
changed any moment; the unconscious leaves no room for 
improvement. * 


*Hartmann, Philosophy of the Unconscious, vol. II, pp. 39 
and 40. Of course, in the young, this last statement is incon- 
correct. 



124 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


Kamacharaka says that the subconscious is also 

. . . the seat of the appetites, passions, desires, instincts, 

sensations, feelings, and emotions of the lower order, mani¬ 
fested in man as well as in the lower animals. There are, 
of course, higher ideas, emotions, aspirations, and desires, 
reaching the advanced man from the unfolding spiritual 
mind; but the animal desires, and the ordinary feelings, emo¬ 
tions, etc., belong to the instinctive mind. 

Note what Dr. Walstein says about the reaction of 
the subconscious to memory: 

The sympathy or aversion with which persons affect us at 
first sight, the depressing or the exhilarating effect of certain 
scenes, erroneously considered instinctive, could be easily 
accounted for if it were possible to raise certain associations 
from the depths of the subconscious self: to rememori'ze them. 

When a peculiar scent, the characteristic appearance of a 
person or place, a bar of music, awaken in us a special mood, 
it is necessary first to recognize the inciting cause, excluding 
all sensations of the moment, before the mind is able to con¬ 
centrate its attention upon the mood thus subconsciously pro¬ 
duced. 

The uniformity of daily habits, fashions, food and the like, 
will serve to awaken numberless subconscious moods, which 
might suggest, in their turn, the same course of ideas. 

And Paul Bousfield seems to have the same opinion: 

So we see that there is ‘an unconscious part of the mind 
which acts as a storehouse for memories, ideas, and emotions 
of the past. We have not, however, shown that it is any¬ 
thing more than a storehouse. But if we look into it from 
other points of view, we shall see that it is a great deal more 
than a mere storehouse, for it thinks, reasons, comes to con¬ 
clusions and in fact assists in controlling our acts at every 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


125 


turn; indeed this unconscious part of our mind wields driving 
forces of the utmost potency in moulding our lives. 

Dor instance, <as Christian D. Larson says: 

The fear of any disease will tend to produce that disease in 
a measure; if not physically, then mentally. Entertaining 
fear of small-pox has been known to develop small-pox germs 
in a body that was thoroughly pure, healthful, and wholesome, 
when there were no such germs in the vicinity. Other con¬ 
tagious diseases have been produced in the same way, prov¬ 
ing that the actions of the mind can and do affect the chemi¬ 
cal life of the body. To expect health and to believe with a 
full faith that you are becoming well, can, and in thousands 
of instances have, produced perfect health in cases that all 
physicians had given up. These are interesting facts; facts 
that are being demonstrated every day, and that every person 
can demonstrate through his own personal experience. 

Baudouin says: 

The subconscious is a storehouse of the memories that have 
lapsed from the ordinary consciousness, of the wishes and 
sentiments that have been repressed, of the impressions of a 
distant past. But it is far from being inert, for it contains, 
in addition, the subsoil waters which are unceasingly at work; 
it contains the suggestions which will well up into the open 
after their hidden passage. This is all imagery, but it serves, 
better than pure abstractions to convey some notion of the 
complex reality we have learned to recognize in the sub¬ 
conscious. 

How large a part the subconscious playis in our lives 
is shown by Dr. Louis Walstein: 

'The accumulated contents of our memory govern our 
emotions, our thoughts and actions, and therefore subconscious 
impressions and their aggregate must necessarily play a 
great part in our individual lives. 


126 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


And the perfect co-operation between memory and 
the subconscious is shown by Dr. Charles F. Winbigler: 

The memory is perfect—never forgets anything—and it 
can reproduce what it knows when the subconscious mind 
is untrammelled by the conscious mind. An illustration 
will aid in understanding this statement. Dr. Bjormistrom 
relates the following experiment performed by Drs. Liegeois 
and Diebault: 

“Liegeois has succeeded with a suggestion of one year’s 
duration. On October 12, 1885, he hypnotized in Nancy a 
young man, Paul M., already before subjected to hypnotic 
experiments. At 10:10 a. m. he told him during the hypnosis 
that the following would happen to him on the same day one 
year later. You will go to <M. Liebault in the morning. 
You will say that your eyes have been well for a whole 
year, and for that you are indebted to him and M. Liegeois. 
You will express your gratitude to both, and you will ask 
permission to embrace both of them, which they will gladly 
allow you to do. After that you will see a dog and a trained 
monkey enter the doctor’s room, one carrying the other. 
They will play various pranks and grimaces, and will greatly 
amuse you. Five minutes later, you will behold the trainer 
with a trained bear. This man will be rejoiced to find his 
dog and his monkey, which he thought he had lost; in order 
to please the company, he will let this bear dance and you 
will not be afraid of him. Just as the man is about to 
leave, you will ask M. Liegeois to let you have ten centimes 
to give to the dog, who will beg and you will give them 
yourself. These professors, at whose clinic the experiment 
was made, kept the suggestion a secret so that the subject 
might not get any knowledge of it. 

“One year later, on October 12, Liegeois was at Liebault’s 
before 9 a. m. At 9:39 a. m. as nobody had arrived, the 
former considered the experiment a failure and returned to 
his room. But at 10:10 a. m., Paul M. come to Liebault and 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


127 


thanked him, but also asked for Liegeois; the latter arrived 
immediately, having been called by a messenger. Paul rose, 
rushed to meet him, and thanked him also. In the presence 
of fifteen or twenty reliable witnesses, the hallucinations 
now clearly developed themselves in Paul, as they had been 
predicted one year before. Paul saw a monkey and a dog 
enter; he was amused by their antics and grimaces. Then 
he saw the dog approach him holding a box in his mouth. 
Paul borrowed ten centimes from Liegeois and made a ges¬ 
ture as if to give them to the dog. Then the trainer came, 
took away the monkey and the dog, but no bear appeared. 
Nor did Paul think of embracing any one; with the ex¬ 
ception of these two details, the suggestion had been ful¬ 
filled. The experiment was ended. Paul complained of slight 
nervous weakness. In order to restore him, Liebault hyp¬ 
notized him, but took the opportunity to ask for informa¬ 
tion about what had taken place. ‘Why did you just now 
see that monkey and that dog?’ ‘Because you gave me a 
suggestion of it on October 12, 1885.’ ‘Have you not mistaken 
the hour? I thought I said 9:00 a. m.’ ‘No, it is you who 
remembers wrong. You did not hypnotize me on the sofa I 
now occupy, but on the one opposite. Then you let me fol¬ 
low you out into the garden, and asked me to return in one 
year; just then, it was ten minutes past ten, and it was at 
that hour that I returned.’ ‘But why did you not see the bear, 
and why did you not embrace Liebault and me.’ ‘Because 
you f old me that only once, whereas you repeated the rest 
twice.’ 

“All those present were struck with the precision of his 
answers, and Liegeois had to acknowledge that Paul’s mem¬ 
ory was better than his own. Awakened after ten or fifteen 
minutes, Paul was entirely calm and had no remembrance 
of what he had just said during the hypnosis, nor did he 
remember what had happened before it in consequence of the 
suggestion of October 12, 1885.” This is a very remarkable 
incident and proves the power of memory of the subcon¬ 
scious mind. 


128 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


Dr. Hudson has this to say of memory as being resi¬ 
dent in the subconscious: 

One of the most striking and important peculiarities of the 
subjective mind, as distinguished from the objective, consists 
in its prodigious memory. It would perhaps be hazardous to 
say that the memory of the subjective mind is perfect, but 
there is good ground for believing that such a proposition 
would be substantially true. It must be understood that this 
■remark applies only to the most profoundly subjective state and 
to the most favorable conditions. In all degrees of hypnotic 
sleep, however, the exaltation of the memory is one of the 
most pronounced of the attendant phenomena. This has been 
observed by all hypnotists, especially by those who make 
their experiments with a view of studying the mental action 
of the subject. Psychologists of all shades of belief have 
recognized the phenomena, and many have declared .their 
conviction that the minutest details of acquired knowledge are 
recorded upon the tablets of the mind, and that they only re¬ 
quire favorable conditions to reveal their treasures. 

Sir William Hamilton, in his “Lectures on Metaphysics," 
designates the phenomenon as “latent memory." He says: 

“The evidence on this point shows that the mind frequently 
contains whole systems of knowledge, which, though in our 
normal state they have faded into absolute oblivion, may, in 
certain abnormal states—as madness, febrile delirium, som¬ 
nambulism, catalepsy, etc.—flash out into luminous con¬ 
sciousness, and even throw into the shade of unconsciousness 
those other systems by which they had, for a long period, 
been eclipsed, and even extinguished. For example, there 
are cases in which the extinct memory of whole languages 
was suddenly restored; and, what is even still more re¬ 
markable, in which the faculty was exhibited! of accurately 
repeating, in known or unknown tongues, passages which 
were never within the grasp of conscious memory in the 
normal state." 

The reader should distinctly bear in mind that there is a 
wide distinction between objective and subjective memory. 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


129 


'The former is one of the functions of the brain, and, as has 
been shown by recent investigations, has an absolute locali¬ 
zation in the cerebral cortex; and the different varieties of 
memory, such as visual memory, auditory memory, memory of 
speech, etc., can be destroyed by localized disease or by a 
surgical operation. Subjective memory, on the other hand, 
appears to be an inherent power, and free from anatomical 
relations; or at least it does not appear to depend upon the 
healthy condition of the brain for its power of manifestation. 

All the facts of hypnotism show that the more quiescent 
the objective faculties become, or, in other words, the more 
perfectly the functions of the brain are suspended, the more 
exalted are the manifestations of the subjective mind. In¬ 
deed, the whole history of subjective phenomena goes to 
show that the nearer the body approaches the condition of 
death, the stronger become the demonstrations of the powers 
of the soul. 

The length to which the subconscious will go, is 
shown by H. C. Sheppard, in the following: 

To show that the subconscious memory is ever active in 
the normal man and woman, and does not necessarily depend 
upon infancy, or, later in life, on some objective defect, an 
incident in the life of Henry Clay proves of value. We may 
read that at a time when he was too ill to reply at length 
on the floor of the Senate, an opponent had made an address 
of vital interest to Clay. He decided to speak, but fearing 
to overexert himself, extracted a promise from a neighboring 
sitter to stop him by fair means or foul at the end of ten 
minutes. The friend nudged Clay at the agreed moment, 
but as he kept right on with the speech, the hint was re¬ 
peated none too gently, and again ignored. A pin was then 
brought into play, but as the subconscious mind with its 
array of facts and logic was thoroughly aroused by force of 
Clay’s own antecedent (unconscious) suggestion, his convic¬ 
tion that he “must say something”, he continued with one 
of the best and most eloquent efforts of his life for a good 


130 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


two hours, feeling neither the pin nor the nudges. He 
stated to friends that records of facts which normally he had 
forgotten, trooped and inarched through his mind, that he had 
felt no nudge and no pin, and, in fact, in his exhaustion at 
the close of his speech, took his friend to task severely for 
permitting him to exceed the ten minutes, as that was the 
length of the speech which he had consciously prepared. 

For other angles of intensified co-ordination of subcon¬ 
scious memory with the objective brain-consciousness, we 
need but to glance at the well known performances of such 
men as Morphy and Pillsbuiry, conducting five to ten games 
of chess at once, with as many expert opponents, and win¬ 
ning; or even at the program repertoire of such artists as 
Hoffman and Paderewski. 

The author does not purport to enter within the 
domain of spiritism in the pages of Applied Psychology 
and Scientific Living:, but I think reputable investiga¬ 
tors are now convinced that the spiritualistic medium 
reads the subconscious thoughts and pictures of the peo¬ 
ple in their presence or with whom they give a seance. 
The person may not at the time have any thought about 
what the medium is using, which they recognize as a 
past experience or as being true. This is easily under¬ 
stood when we remember that there are many episodes 
and incidents of our lives in the treasure chest of 
memory which we have not thought of for twenty, 
thirty, or fifty years; but when the suggestion is given, 
or, when we desire to recall some scene of past days, 
we only need think upon it, and it return®. It has been 
in the subconscious mind all these years, but has been 
submerged—has not come to the surface. 

So the wonders of mediumship are easily understood 
as a subconscious condition. 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MINI) 


131 


But there are so many other reputable works on this 
lino that I shall not dwell upon that phase of the sub¬ 
conscious any more than to mention the phenomena of 
a trance or inspirational speaking-. In the Law of 
Psychic Phenomena, page 330, Hudson gives the fol¬ 
lowing : 

One of the most fascinating and seductive forms of sub¬ 
jective mental activity is exhibited in trance, or inspira¬ 
tional, speaking. A medium of fair intelligence and some 
educaMon, obtained, perhaps, by desultory reading of spiri¬ 
tistic and miscellaneous literature, develops himself into an 
inspirational speaker. As a sincere spirit, he believes 
himself to be controlled by some great spirit who in life 
was celebrated for his eloquence. He ascends the rostrum 
and amazes his audience by his wonderful oratory, his 
marvelous command of the resources of his mind, and, 
above all, by the clearness and cogency of his reasoning. 
Those who have known him before and are aware of the 
limits of his education are the most surprised' of all, and no 
argument can convince them that he is not inspired by 
some almost superhuman intelligence from another world. 
They know nothing of the wonders of subjective mental 
power; they have no knowledge of the perfection of sub¬ 
jective memory, which gives the speaker perfect command 
of all he has ever read, or of the logical exactitude of the 
deductive reasoning of the subjective intelligence. 

The speaker, on his part, finds himself in possession of 
such wonderful powers and resources, emanating, as he be¬ 
lieves, from an extraneous source, abandons his old pur¬ 
suits, and devotes himself to the work of his inspiration. 
It is an easy and pleasurable existence for the time being. 
He finds that there is no need of taking thought of what 
he is to say, for ideas, and words with which to clothe 
them, flow from him like a mountain torrent. He finds 
himself in possession of knowledge which he has no objec¬ 
tive recollection of ever having acquired, and of ideas which 


132 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


were foreign to his objective intelligence. He believes, and, 
from his standpoint, has every reason to believe, that he 
is inspired by some lofty spirit whose knowledge is un¬ 
limited and whose resources are unfailing. He feels that 
he has no need of further reading or study, and the work 
of objective intellectual labor soon becomes a drudgery. 
The result is that his objective intellectual growth soon 
comes to a stand-still, and at length his objective intellect 
begins to deteriorate. 

In the meantime, his subjective powers may continue to 
grow in brilliancy for a time, or at least they shine with a 
new lustre, as they are compared with the deepening dull¬ 
ness of his objective intellect. At length he becomes fitful, 
erratic, eccentric. As his objective powers deteriorate, they 
no longer have any semblance of control over his subjective 
mind. The suggestions which reason, in its best estate, may 
have given to his subjective mind, as a starting-point for 
his discourses, are no longer available, for his power to rea¬ 
son is failing. His friends, who follow him from place to 
place, begin to notice that he talks one thing at one place, 
and the opposite at another. They attribute the fact to the 
control of different spirits at different times, and for a time 
they are consoled. Eventually the fact is forced upon them 
that in his normal, or objective, condition he is growing 
more and more erratic, and that at times his conversation 
is the merest drivel. As in all the other forms of subjective 
development mentioned, his physical deterioration keeps pace 
with his mental decline. 

In the meantime his subjective powers appear to de¬ 
teriorate. It is not true, in fact, that his subject mind, 
per se, deteriorates for that is impossible. But as it is 
always controlled by suggestion, it necessarily takes its cue 
from the suggestions conveyed to it by the objective mind. 
When that ceases to develop, the subjective mind keeps on 
in its old rut, for the obvious reason that no new ideas are 
imparted to it. When the objective mind begins to dete¬ 
riorate, its suggestions are no longer coherent, and the sub¬ 
jective mind is necessarily incoherent in exact proportion. 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


133 


Its deductions from a false or imbecile suggestion will be 
logically correct; but, as a matter of course, a false, ex¬ 
travagant, or imbecile premise, followed to its legitimate, 
logical conclusion, necessarily leads the mind into a corre¬ 
sponding maze of extravagance and imbecility. It is there¬ 
fore no indication of a decline of subjective powers, but it is 
a demonstration of the universality of the law of suggestion. 

It goes without saying that if an inspirational speaker 
were aware of the source of his power, and of the laws 
which govern it, and would constantly keep it under the 
control of his reason, he could utilize it to the very best 
advantage. A cultured man of well-balanced intellect would 
then formulate his own premises according to the best 
lights obtainable through the processes of inductive reason¬ 
ing, and “inspiration would do the rest.” If his premises 
were correct, the subjective mind could always be depended 
upon to deduce the correct conclusions, and to illustrate 
them by drawing upon the resources of its perfect memory 
of all that the individual has ever seen, heard, or read 
bearing upon the subject. Such a man would be known as 
a man of “geniu3,” in whatever direction he exercised his 
powers. And just in proportion to the natural powers and 
cultivation of his objective mind and the extent of his objec¬ 
tive information would his subjective manifestations be bril¬ 
liant and powerful. 

I do not say that such an exercise of subjective power 
would not be abnormal and productive of untoward physi¬ 
cal consequences. Men of genius in all ages of the world 
have unconsciously exercised this power. But men of genius 
the world over have been too often noted for abnormalities 
of character and conduct. Profane history furnishes but 
one example where a man of genius appears to have been 
in possession of objective and subjective powers perfectly 
balanced, and who was able to utilize his enormous objec¬ 
tive advantages, resulting from constant and intimate asso¬ 
ciation with the greatest minds of his generation, in the 
subjective production of works which must always stand 
pre-eminent. It is unnecessary to say that I allude to Shake- 


134 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


speare. So little is known of his private life that it is im¬ 
possible to judge whether abnormal physical effects resulted 
from his labors. But his works are full of internal evidence 
that his subjective powers were under the constant control 
of a well-trained and perfectly balanced objective intellect. 

It is of course impossible to say just how far subjective 
power might, normally, be employed in the direction indi¬ 
cated, in the absolute dearth of examples where it has been 
employed) with a full knowledge of the laws which govern 
it. But certain it is that so long as it is exercised under 
the delusion that it is an extraneous and superior power, 
over which the objective man possesses no control, just so 
long will the victim of the delusion be subject tc the 
caprice of an irresponsible power, which will eventually drive 
him to the horrors of insanity or leave him in the darkness 
of imbecility. . . v 

Dr. Alfred T. Schofield, eminent physician, has gath¬ 
ered the following opinion on this phase of the suhcon¬ 
scious : 

The subconscious mind is the seat of character, of con¬ 
science, and the spirit life. It is the source of conduct, of 
instinct, of tact, and the thousand qualities that make us 
what we are. It is “the ultimate governor and ruler of all 
actions and functions of the body and, in every way, the most 
important factor in our psychical andl physical life.” 

The will itself may be unconscious. “The conscious and 
unconscious wills are essentially distinguished by this, that 
the idea which forms the object of will is conscious in the 
one case, unconscious in the other.”* 

The sense of the beautiful is of unconscious origin. “The 
creation of the beautiful by man proceeds from unconscious 
processes whose results the feeling and the discovery of the 
beautiful represent in consciousness, and form the starting- 


♦Hartmann, Philosophy of the Unconscious, vol. I, p. 253. 



THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


135 


point of further conscious work wihich, however, at every 
stage needs more or less the support of the unconscious. 1 2 

This sense of beauty is one of the most mysterious of our 
unconscious faculties. The more it is considered, the more 
wonderful and arbitrary does it appear. 

The ordinary artist does everything with conscious choice, 
the genius acts on impulses from unconscious sources. There 
is a lack in the former of “divine frenzy, the powerful breath 
of the unconscious, which appears to consciousness as higher 
and inexplicable suggestions which it is forced to apprehend 
as facts, without ever being able to unravel their sources.”2 

The difference between talent and genius is the difference 
between the conscious and the unconscious. 3 4 

Instinct is not the result of conscious reflection, not a con¬ 
sequence of bodily organization, not mere results of the 
mechanical foundation of the organization of the brain, but 
“the individual’s own activity, springing from his inmost 
nature and character.”^ 

The ethical element in man lies in the deepest night of the 
unconscious. 

Our ego, or personality, as Spencer implies, seems to have 
its origin or source in the unconscious region. 

What we call “ourselves” is a something which lies in the 
background of our consciousness, enabling us to combine the 
series of impressions made upon us, or the state of feeling 
within us, into a continuous personal identity. 

The reader no doubt has himself observed that there 
is a number of mental processes of which we are un¬ 
conscious : 

Kant admits that unconscious sensations and obscure per¬ 
ceptions form the larger proportion of our mental states. 5 

1 Ibid., p. 291. 

2 Ibid., p. 278. 

3 E. Eibot, Heredity, p. 229. 

4 Ed. v. Hartmann, Philosophy of the Unconscious, vol. I., 
p. 113. 

5 G. H. Lewes, Study of Psychology, p. 17. 



136 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


I have had a feeling of the uselessness of all voluntary- 
effort, and also that the matter was working itself clear in 
my mind. It has many times seemed to me that I was really 
a passive instrument in the hands of a person not myself. 
In view of having to wait for the result of these unconscious 
(?) processes, I have proved the habit of getting together 
material in advance, and leaving the mass to digest itself till 
I am ready to write about it. I delayed for a month those 
portions of this work relating to attention, association, and 
representation. I went to my library each morning and per¬ 
severed days in succession reading Aristotle, Locke, Hartley, 
Mill, Bain, 'Spencer, Lewes, Paine, Hodgson, and then would 
sit looking out of the window at the park. I was conscious 
of thinking of nothing. I would take my fieldglasses and 
watch people. I wanted to write but could not, because I 
was conscious I was not yet in a proper mental state to say 
what ought to be said. One evening, when reading the daily 
paper, the substance of what I have written flashed upon my 
brain, and next morning I began to write. This is only a 
sample of many such experiences.6 

In writing this work, I have been unable to arrange my 
knowledge of a subject for days and weeks until I experienced 
a “clearing up” of my mind, when I took my pen, and un¬ 
hesitatingly wrote the result. I have best accomplished this 
by leading the (conscious) mind as far away as possible from 
psychology. 7 

When the conscious mind is in abeyance, as in a dream or 
reverie, or artificially, as in hypnotism or narcotism, the un¬ 
conscious mind emerges from its obscurity, and impressions 
unconsciously formed upon the brain are seen and noticed 
for the first time; just as a receding tide lays bare the sands. 

Many educated persons know four languages. This will 
give 160,000 words, or 40,000 for each, which is an under¬ 
estimate. These words are as arbitrary symbols as signs in 
algebra. Then consider the countless facts and ideas bound 


6 Dr. G. Thompson, System of Psychology, p. 432. 

7 Ibid. 



THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


137 


up with, these words in a well-informed mind. Such a mind 
is far more richly stocked with words and ideas than the 
British Museum is with books. The British Museum will pro¬ 
duce, after a hunt, in catalogues and shelves, of perhaps ten 
minutes, any book wanted. But the single unconscious 
librarian who waits our orders in the crowded chambers of 
our memory is far more speedy and skillful in his service. 
A student reads a page of French or German in a minute, 
and for each of the 200 or 300 groups of hieroglyphics printed 
on it, the unconscious instantly furnishes us with whatever 
we call for; its meaning, its etymology, its English equiv¬ 
alent, or any associated ideas connected with it. We have 
no conscious clue to direct the search. It is enough we want 
the point to be remembered, and instantly it is produced out 
of the vast repository. I think this single illustration suffi¬ 
cient proof of the presence and agency of the unconscious. 
For what mechanical or chemical action is conceivable as 
a possible explanation of the phenomenon in question? 8 

The chambers of memory, however, may be pigeon¬ 
holed with many unfriendly suggestions which are un¬ 
conscious, and in time may produce ill-health, lower 
efficiency, attract fear and all of the i'll effects which 
negative suggestion may bring to human beings. Andre 
Tridon,* * in the first chapter in “Psychoanalysis and 
Behavior,” has dwelt upon this phase of the subcon¬ 
scious most minutely, from which we quote below: 

To the majority of people, our conscious life appears as 
the most important, if not the only important, form of life. 
Most of our rules of behaviour, most of our judgments on 
human actions are based upon that estimate of our conscious 
life. 


8 Prof. Bowen, Modern Philosophy, p. 457. 

* Alfred A. Knopf, New York, publisher. 



138 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


And yet we (are conscious of very few things at a time, 
and we are conscious of each one of those things only for 
variable, sometimes, very short periods. 

After a week, a day, an hour, or a fraction of a second, 
the various things we were conscious of drop out of our 
consciousness, temporarily or permanently. We may witness 
a theatrical performance, be conscious of it that evening, 
think of it perhaps the next day, mention it several times in 
conversation, remember it years after when it is alluded to 
in our presence, and then forget it. 

But the impression made on us by that performance does 
not die off. It only becomes unconscious. That impression 
and millions of others are stored up in our “unconscious” 
where they continue to live as unconscious elements. 

These impressions meant either active or passive reactions 
to certain stimulations, the yielding to or resistance to those 
stimulations, memory-images of satisfied cravings and of 
repressed cravings, joy or pain, longing or hatred, in other 
words, all our life from the day of our birth, with all its 
struggles against reality, its compromises with reality, its 
victories and defeats, etc. 

All that past which we are constantly carrying with us and 
to which we are constantly adding, is bound, according to 
what elements predominate in it, to color strongly our con¬ 
scious view of life and to determine our conscious activities. 

A neurologist, a sexual pervert, a sculptor, and a manicure 
would react very differently to the sight of a woman’s hand. 
An egotist would be unable to notice in his environment 
things of a neutral type, that is, unlikely to affect his ego¬ 
tism favorably or unfavorably. To a farmer, a certain ac¬ 
cumulation of clouds might suggest only a danger to his 
crops; the same meteorological phenomenon might transport 
a painter with artistic joy. A chemist or a sailor would 
place a totally different construction on their observations of 
the same clouds. 

We know that unconscious factors cause us to engage in 
certain forms of activity, to become insane, to fall asleep, 
or to remain sleepless, to love a certain type, and to 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


139 


remain frigid to another. They influence our methods of 
reasoning, making us at times illogical and one-sided, stub¬ 
born, and unjust. 

In other words, our entire life is influenced, if not entirely 
determined by unconscious factors. 

Our unconscious is the greatest time and energy saving 
machine, provided it functions normally. Some of our sim¬ 
plest conscious acts presuppose an enormous amount of un¬ 
conscious work. Stepping aside to dodge an automobile, 
simple as it appears, is only made possible by innumerable 
“mental” and “physical” operations, such as realizing the 
nature, size, direction, and speed, of the dangerous object, 
selecting a safe spot at a certain distance from it, performing 
the necessary muscular actions, etc., etc. 

On the other hand we may, without any apparent reason, 
perform useless, absurd, harmful actions, and be genuinely 
grieved or puzzled over our behaviour. We ask ourselves, 
“What made me do that?” 

Our unconscious made us do that. Our behaviour was 
dominated and determined by one or several factors unknown 
to us and which, unless investigated systematically, may 
remain unknown, puzzling, detrimental, if not dangerous, 
and may at some future time be once more the cause of 
irrational behaviour. 

Our unconscious “contains” two sorts of “thoughts”: 
those which rise easily to the surface of our consciousness 
and those which remain at the bottom and can only be made 
to 'rise with more or less difficulty. 

Our unconscious is like a pool into which dead leaves, 
dust, rain drops, and a thousand other things are falling 
day after day, some of them floating on the surface for a 
while, some sinking to the bottom and, all of them, after a 
while, merging themselves with the water or the ooze. Let 
us suppose that two dead dogs, one of them weighted down 
with a stone, have been thrown into that pool. They will 
poison its waters, and people wishing to use those waters 
will have to rake the ooze and remove the rotting carrion. 
The dog whose body was not fastened to any heavy object 


140 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


will easily be brought to the surface and removed. The 
other will be more difficult to recover and if the stone is very 
heavy, may remain in the pool until ways and means are 
devised to dismember him or to cut the rope holding him 
down. 

Another simile might be offered. Out of the persons 
assembled in a room, not one may be thinking of the 
multiplication table. Yet if some one points out three chairs 
worth six dollars apiece and asks the audience how much 
the three together are worth, the part of the multiplication 
table containing the answer will rise to the surface of every¬ 
body’s consciousness, to sink back into the unconscious a 
second later. 

Other thoughts would not rise so willingly into conscious¬ 
ness: those associated with some painful or humiliating 
memory or with the repression of some human craving. 
Only a special effort aided by many association tests will 
in certain cases cut the rope that holds those “dead dogs 
tied to their paving stone.” 

Such thoughts are called complexes and 'they are the 
most disturbing element in our lives, for, unknown to us, 
they exert a strong influence on all our mental operations 
and on our bodily activities. 

It is not so much our consciousness as our unconsciousness 
which IS our personality. Our conscious thoughts are fleet¬ 
ing and changing, our unconscious is more permanent. If 
we take a list of some hundred words and ask a person to 
tell us what comes at once to his mind when he hears each 
word spoken, it will be noticed that the answers which come 
without any hesitancy would be the same several months 
afterward. Those answers, in fact, by their wording, present 
a striking picture of the personality, a picture which only 
changes when the personality undergoes distinct modifica¬ 
tions. 

Only the words referring to the person’s complexes are 
likely to change, as if the unconscious was trying to conceal 
the place where the “dead dogs” have been buried. In re¬ 
action tests, in fact, the subject’s failure to give the same 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


141 


answer is taken to indicate a hidden complex. But even the 
varying answers given in such cases are closely related to 
one another. 

When we remember how our unconscious has “grown” 
that is, through the accumulation of memories and repres¬ 
sions from the day of our birth, or even from our prenatal 
existence to the present day, we must realize that a large 
proportion of the elements which constitute it, is primitive, 
infantile, or childlike, unadapted or only partly adapted. 
Its influence on our behaviour is not likely, therefore, to 
facilitate our adaptation to the innumerable rules imposed 
by a more and more complex civilization. 

Through all our life, our unconscious follows us like the 
shadow of an archaic self, prompting us to seek a line of 
lesser resistance, or to give up the struggle with the modern 
world, to indulge ourselves in many ways which are no 
longer acceptable socially; when childlike or infantile ele¬ 
ments predominate in it, its influence may unfit us com¬ 
pletely for life in modern communities, unless we are brought 
to a clear realization of the ghostly power masquerading as 
ourselves and which tries to pull us back. 

When the man we were yesterday offers us suggestions 
as to conduct, we are probably safe in accepting them. When 
the boy we were at 15, endeavors to convince us that his 
way was the only way, the struggle for mastery between 
ourselves and the boy may usher in a neurosis. When the 
infant we were at one or two years of age, coaxes us to 
indulge ourselves as he did and we yield to his entreaties, 
we may regress temporarily or permanently to a level at 
which we shall be adjudged insane. 

Academic psychologists have suggested a number of very 
interesting but meaningless words to designate the varying 
degrees of unconsciousness, such as foreconscious, precon- 
scious, subconscious, etc. . . . 

For scientific purposes the word unconscious is sufficient. 
Instead of distinguishing degrees of unconsciousness which 
may easily change, it is preferable to assign reasons for 
unconsciousness. The multiplication table in the above illus- 


142 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


tration was unconscious because it was not needed!, for 
reasons of economy. It became conscious when needed. 
Other factors, mentioned previously, remain unconscious be¬ 
cause the thought of them is repressed or suppressed. Some 
are forgotten, because they are insignificant, some because 
the memory of them is weighted with unpleasant connota¬ 
tions, as one of the dead dogs was weighted with a paving 
stone. 

It is the task of psychoanalysis to make us thoroughly 
familiar with the content of our unconscious, that we may, 
on every occasion, determine whether the voices, talking to 
us from the past buried in us are the voices of civilization or 
the voices of regression. 

Psychoanalysis forewarns us> against any undue influence 
it may exert in the conduct of our lives, and helps those of 
us who may have listened to the wrong voice, to free them¬ 
selves from their slavery. 

Instead of saying, as academic psychologists would put it, 
that the psychoanalytic technique can make unconscious 
factors foreconscious and finally conscious, we should say 
that it can establish a relation of cause-effect between cer¬ 
tain acts and certain unconscious factors. 

This phase of the subconscious is one of ithe most 
important and extensive studies in psychology and has 
been dealt with at great length in Volume IV of the 
Fundamentals of Practical Psychology. We are en¬ 
deavoring, in Applied Psychology and Scientific Liv¬ 
ing to give some of the fundamentals o ! f the subcon¬ 
scious and its actions as applied to success, health, and 
happiness 'and can only drect the reader where and 
how he may follow the other angles of this great study 
of the mind. , 


PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OF SUGGESTION 143 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OF SUGGESTION 


How the Subconscious Receives Suggestion — The 

Subconscious Does Not Question As To Right Or 
Wrong—The Part Suggestion Plays In Making 
Us What We Are—Suggestion Used In 
Self-development 

The subconscious mind will hold only one thought 
at a time. It does not reason, deduct, or use its own 
judgment in working upon this one thought. The 
thought on which it works is given to it by the con¬ 
scious mind. The process of passing this thought from 
the conscious into the subconscious is called sug¬ 
gestion. The conscious mind suggests to the subcon¬ 
scious mind what it shall work upon. This conscious 
mind, acting in such a capacity, has been given many 
terms. It has been called the “sentinel at the gate,” 
for every thought which the conscious mind has, does 
not pass on to the subconscious. 

The conscious mind acts as a sentinel, letting some 
thoughts reach the subconscious and preventing other 
thoughts from reaching the subjective mind. The sub¬ 
conscious mind has sometimes been called “the keeper 
of an estate / 9 

The subconscious mind is reached by suggestion, 
which is an act or process whereby an idea is made to 




144 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


reach, or penetrate, the subconscious so that it holds 
firmly to thoughts suggested. 

The subconscious mind takes and, without reason¬ 
ing, works out any thought which the sentinel at the 
door allows to pass through the little trap door. The 
thought may be given the subconscious mind by audi¬ 
ble suggestion by some one talking to the person, either 
in the wake state or the sleep state, of the subject or 
sender, or both. It may be a suggestion of panic, fright, 
fear, or any emotional state. It may be a suggestion 
of an extraordinary condition or circumstance. Or 
the suggestion may reach the subconscious by sur¬ 
roundings or conditions; such as, a person becomes 
drowsy by coming into a dimly lighted room, where 
the furnishings conform to the light, and a reclining 
position may be taken. 

In “Health and Self-mastery,” we find the follow¬ 
ing statement: 

The relation of the unconscious mind to the conscious 
mind is that the former is the psychic reservoir which re¬ 
ceives all the accumulations of experiences and impressions 
of the personality that pass through, often without notice, 
the conscious mind. 

In his Edinburgh Lectures, Judge Troward says: 

As a consequence of this, it follows that the subjective 
mind is entirely under the control of the objective mind. 
With the utmost fidelity it reproduces and works out to 
its final consequences whatever the objective mind impresses 
upon it; and the facts of hypnotism show that ideas can be 
impressed on the subjective mind by the objective mind of 
another as well as by that of its own individuality. This 


PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OF SUGGESTION 145 


is a most important point, for it is on this amenability to 
suggestion by the thought of another that all the phenomena 
of healing, whether present or absent, of telepathy and the 
like, depend. Under the control of the practised hypnotist 
the very personality of the subject becomes changed for the 
time being; he believes himself to be whatever the operator 
tells him he is: He is a swimmer breasting the waves, 
a bird flying in the air, a soldier in the tumult of battle, 
an Indian stealthily tracking his victim: in short, for the 
time being, he identifies himself with any personality that 
is impressed upon him by the will of the operator, and acts 
the part with inimitable accuracy. But the experiments 
of hypotism go further than this, and show the existence in 
the subjective mind of powers far transcending any exercised 
by the objective mind through the medium of the physical 
senses; powers of thought reading, of thought transference, 
of clairvoyance, and the like, all of which are frequently 
mesmeric state; and we have thus experimental proof of the 

mesmeric state; and we have thus experimental proof of the 

existence in ourselves of transcendental faculties the full 
development and conscious control of which would place us 
in a perfectly new sphere of life. 

But it should be noted that the control must be our 
own, and not that of any external intelligence whether in 
the flesh or out of it. 

But perhaps the most important fact which hypnotic ex¬ 
periments have demonstrated is that the subjective mind is 

the builder of the body.* The subjective entity in the 

patient is able to diagnose the character of the disease from 
which he is suffering, and to point out suitable remedies, in¬ 
dicating a physiological knowledge exceeding that of the 
most highly trained physicians, and also a knowledge of the 
correspondences between diseased conditions of the bodily 


♦For a complete study of the subconscious mind and of 
health fundamentals, see Practical Psychology and Sex Life, 
by David V. Bush. 



146 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


organs and the material remedies which can afford relief. 
And from this it is but a step farther to those numerous 
instances in which it entirely dispenses with the use of mate* 
rial remedies, and itself works directly on the organism, so 
that complete restoration to health follows as the result of 
the suggestions of perfect soundness made by the operator to 
the patient while in the hypnotic state. 

Now these are facts fully established by hundreds of 
experiments conducted by a variety of investigators in dif¬ 
ferent parts of the world, and from them we may draw two 
inferences of the highest importance: one, that the subjective 
mind is in itself absolutely impersonal, and the other that it 
is the builder of the body, or in other words it is the creative 
power in the individual. That it is impersonal in itself is 
shown by its readiness to assume any personality the hypno¬ 
tist chooses to impress upon it; and the unavoidable inference 
is that its realization of personality proceeds from its asso¬ 
ciation with the particular objective mind of its own in¬ 
dividuality. Whatever personality the objective mind im¬ 
presses upon it, that personality it assumes and acts up to; 
and since it is the builder of the body, it will build up a body 
in correspondence with the personality thus impressed upon 
it. These two laws of the subjective mind form the founda¬ 
tion of the axiom that our body represents the aggregate of 
our beliefs. If our fixed belief is that the body is subject 
to all sorts of influences beyond our control, and that this, 
that, or the other symptom shows that such an uncontrollable 
influence is at work upon us, then this belief is impressed 
upon the subjective mind which by the law of its nature ac¬ 
cepts it without question and proceeds to fashion bodily con¬ 
ditions in accordance with this belief. 

Then, on the same principle, if we realize that the sub¬ 
jective mind is the builder of the body, and that the body is 
subject to no influences except those which reach it through 
the subjective mind, then what we have to do is to impress 
this upon the subjective mind and habitually think of it as 


PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OF SUGGESTION 147 


a fountain of perpetual Life*, which is continually renovat¬ 
ing the body by building in strong and healthy material, in 
the most complete independence of any influences of any 
sort, save those of our own desire impressed upon our own 
subjective mind by our own thought. When once we fully 
grasp these considerations we shall see that it is just as 
easy to externalize healthy conditions of body as the con¬ 
trary. Practically the process amounts to a belief in our 
own power of life; and since this belief, if it be thoroughly 
domiciled within us, will necessarily produce a correspond¬ 
ingly healthy body, we should spare no pains to convince our¬ 
selves that there are sound and reasonable grounds for hold¬ 
ing it. To afford a solid basis for this conviction is the 
purpose of Mental Science. 

I like to use my own terminology, namely, that the 
conscious mind acts as a little trap door which, when 
opened, lets a thought pass into the subconscious, and 
when this trap door—the conscious mind—is closed, 
the thought is in the subconscious mind to stay, guard¬ 
ed by the sentinel at the gate, until the trap door is 
opened by the sentinel and a new thought is given to 
the subconscious, whereupon the former thought is 
crowded out by the new. 

Thus we see that, as Coue says, “The conscious can 
put the unconscious mind over the hurdles.’’ 

In “Psychology Made Practical,” H. C. Sheppard 
explains how and why this operation takes place. 
Sheppard says: 

Observations to some extent, but more especially deep, 
serious thoughts (over personal experiences, perhaps)—emo- 

*For practical understandable and workable method in 
this particular, see Practical Psychology and Sex Life, by 
Dr. David V. Bush. 



148 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


tions always—and convictions, sink through the floor of the 
waking, objective mind, into the basement—into the habitat 
of the ever acting, ever building subconscious mind—there 
to be treated as the premises—as exclusive truths—and as 
the only plans of work for the building of your body, your 
health, environment, success, and destiny. And not only 
is this true of the form in which the ideas “dropped through,” 
but it applies equally to their ultimate conclusions. . . . 

Now let us consider the position of the subconscious mind 
and, perhaps, we can gain a better understanding of why it 
does what it does. Being in the basement, of course, it can¬ 
not go touring around gaining impressions and therefrom 
formulating its own premises of action. It has not as yet the 
power of inductiveness. Yet let us remember that it is 
mind, and, therefore, never inactive. However, without a 
premise or order from somewhere, it could not act at all. 
It is a little difficult for us, as individuals in waking, ob¬ 
jective consciousness, to conceive of another state or con¬ 
dition wherein the giving to oneself a promise, suggestion or 
command would be impossible. We can approximate an un¬ 
derstanding of the situation, however, in fancying one from 
birth completely bereft of ability to get sensory impressions. 
Picture a man who from birth has not had the senses of feel¬ 
ing, or touch, sight, hearing, smelling, or taste. Suppose such 
a man, however, even if one must stretch the imagination, 
to be superhumanly capable—eager to work. He would obey 
any impulse, suggestion, or order that by a seeming miracle 
might be made to enter his brain. The analogy is crude and 
imperfect, but to some slight degree depicts the status of 
our subconscious mind. The “seeming miracle” is performed 
with each completed process of thought. 

We can train onr subconscious mind to accept sug¬ 
gestions offered by the sentinel—the conscious mind— 
at the gate. All suggestions reach the subconscious 
mind by way of the conscious mind, but every thought 


PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OF SUGGESTION 149 


which the conscious mind holds is not passed on as a 
suggestion to the subjective. For instance, if a per¬ 
son has fear deeply imbedded in the subconscious mind, 
the subconscious is so engrossed upon working over¬ 
time on this fear thought that it may not readily ac¬ 
cept a suggestion from the conscious mind. In that 
instance, the conscious mind must be very thorough and 
positive in suggesting, to get the subconscious to ac¬ 
cept the new suggestion. 

If the subconscious mind is filled with fear and we 
want to replace this with confidence and courage, it 
means that the conscious mind may have repeatedly 
to suggest courage and confidence to the subconscious; 
but, if the pension is consistent and persistent in re¬ 
peating “confidence” and “courage,” the subconscious 
will, in time, take up the new suggestion. 

Sometimes, however, a person has not power enough 
behind the suggestion of the conscious mind to open 
the trap door and get the other suggestion into the 
subconscious. In that case the conscious minds of two 
or three other people, or six or eight other minds sug¬ 
gesting to the person, will add power to the suggestion, 
so that the trap door opens and the subconscious mind 
accepts the new thought. This is called heterosugges¬ 
tion. 

The subjective mind will accept and work upon one 
thought at a time only, but it will not take an immoral 
suggestion.* 

*See quotation from Dr. C. F. Winbigler, on succeeding 
pages, in which he describes experiments by Dr. James R. 

Cocke. 



150 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


One of the characteristics of the subjective mind is self- 
preservation. We have found, by experimenting with per¬ 
sons under hypnosis, that they will not reveal secrets that 
are detrimental to them. No experimenter has ever been 
able to induce his subject to reveal the inner work of 
Masonry; nor could he ever make, by any artifice, a Hiber¬ 
nian give up his secrets. 

The subconscious mind is extremely credulous—it 
lacks all sense of the true and rational as is again 
evidenced in hypnotic conditions. 

“But,” says H. E. Hunt, “ordinarily speaking, the 
subconscious mind is unable to differentiate between 
the false and the true, but is compelled to absorb both 
alike.” 

Says Dr. Winbigler: 

The subconscious mind governs the vital functions and 
organs of the body automatically, controls nutrition, receives 
impressions from the conscious mind, reasons only deduct¬ 
ively and manifests its power through emotion, desire and 
impulse. 

It is generally agreed that the subjective, or sub¬ 
conscious mind reasons only deductively. Judge 
Troward says: 

The subjective mind is only able to reason deductively 
and not inductively, while the objective mind can do both. 

And Dr. Boyd enlarges on this point thus: 

. . . The conscious has to do with that realm of sensation 
and thought of which we take cognizance. The subconscious 
has to do with those sensations, thoughts, and activities of 
which we are unconscious. The conscious side of the mind 
is the master of the house of the Lord, usually called the 


PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OF SUGGESTION 151 


body. It is the architect of life and destiny. It creates the 
ideals for body, mind, and character. It is equipped with 
every method of reasoning so that it may determine what 
is good or bad, right or wrong, in a world where these are 
so entangled as to set the wisest by the ears. It can reason 
by induction, i. e., it can take a large number of separate facts 
and draw from them a general principle or law. It can reason 
by deduction, i. e., it can take a given fact and draw from 
it every logical sequence. It can reason by comparison, i. e., 
it can take a proposed fact and compare it with a known 
fact and determine its probable truth or value. It can reason 
by analysis, i e., it can separate a proposition into its elements 
and determine their relative value. It can reason by syn¬ 
thesis, i. e., it can take a large number of related facts and, 
bind them into a consistent whole. It is therefore peculiarly 
fitted for such a world as that in which we live, but it would 
have no place in a world where only truth and right existed. 
. . . Being unable to hold two contrasting ideas for the pur¬ 
pose of comparison, it cannot therefore tell whether a thing 
is good or bad, true or false. Its deductions from any suggested; 
fact are perfectly logical but if there is a false premise in¬ 
volved, it has no means of detecting the fallacy. It is essen¬ 
tially the builder of the body. It cannot originate anything. 
It can only carry out hereditary tendencies, traditional ideas 
or things suggested by the conscious mind. It is as tenacious 
in holding to a good idea or habit as it is in holding a bad 
one. It will work out any idea held over it by the conscious 
mind. If that idea is repeated often enough it will work it 
out automatically, without any conscious thought taking 
place. It is the seat and creature of habit. 

Winbigler expresses his idea on this as follows: 

All the mind the child has at first is subconscious* with 
the senses and brain ready to receive impressions and thus 
afford the basis for the development of the conscious mind. 
This is one great reason why special emphasis should be put 


152 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


on child study. The child nature manifests disposition, love, 
emotional life, memory, sense of justice, awakening con¬ 
sciousness, personality, moral sense, the intentional use of 
special senses and habits largely in this order of develop¬ 
ment. 

If all these characteristics are cared for and developed, 
the child will grow into a splendid being. Education is the 
process by which these things are regularly and gradually 
developed with the growth of the child. There are thousands 
of children whose education has been immoral. Is it any won¬ 
der that they are handicapped in life? The one supreme 
Question with us is as to the method of changing such lives 
so that they shall become moral. There are several methods 
of effecting this change: 

1. Preaching to them the gospel which has in it the strong¬ 
est inducements to help one to lead a moral and spiritual life. 

2. Reading attentively good books in which are presented 
noble characters who have been made so by choosing the 
highest motives and acting out the best that was in them. 

3. Personal experiences from a good man. 

4. Thoughts that are pure, elevating, and transforming to 
the receptive mind of the young person, as in sleep or when 
hypnotized. 

5. Any method by which the subconscious mind may be 
reached by good suggestions, especially by such as will be 
naturally received and acted on. 

The education of the subconscious mind is going on all 
the time, and suggestions are being received more or less 
effectively and continuously, so that we frequently find 
children who have been very bad, changing into thoughtful 
and good persons. The converse is also seen. That mind had 
caught up and acted on impressions, so that we have either 
good or bad results, conditioned on the teachings received. 

. . . What we want to make plain is that suggestion con¬ 
trolling the subconscious mind is the power by which morals 
may be corrected and changed. Take the case of the Rubin 


PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OF SUGGESTION 153 


boy, taken in band by Dr. Quackenbos. The boy was cruel, 
a sexual pervert, and nearly insane, but by the utilization of 
suggestion he was entirely changed.* 

Moral and educational training becomes an essential and 
vital part of one’s individuality. If the subject in an hypnotic 
condition, is told to do a criminal act, or if an unvirtuous 
suggestion is made to him, he will suddenly awaken or by 
shock become rebellious or extremely nervous. If the person 
in a natural condition would do wrong or commit criminal 
acts, he would do so when hypnotized, but that is no argument 
against hypnotism. By virtue of a moral life and educational 
training, the hypnotist cannot absolutely control the sub¬ 
ject’s will. 

Instinctive or intuitional protection is one of the first, 
strongest, and most remarkable characteristics of man’s na¬ 
ture. These instincts are especially strong in women. They 
are in many respects the basis of self-preservation, self-de¬ 
fense, and reproduction. Women seem to scent danger and 
things that are palpably and criminally wrong, and they in¬ 
tuitively raise a protest that cannot be broken down by outside 
suggestion. 

Autosuggestion of surrounding circumstances has also 
inherent protection for the subject. The experiments to be 
performed, their object, and the character of the person ex¬ 
perimenting, all have a favorable or adverse influence on the 
subject, thus helping to put him on his guard. 

We can easily see how futile many of the laboratory tests 
have been in reaching any satisfactory conclusions of value, 
in settling the question whether a hypnotized person can be 
employed or will participate in committing crime. 

If the subject is among friends, he will not act violently 
against his or their highest interests. If he is among strang¬ 
ers, his subconscious mind would urge caution. Dr. James 

♦For the way to protect children from immorality, sexual 
and otherwise, during adolescence and later in life, see Prac¬ 
tical Psychology and Sex Life, under Subconscious Mind, by 
David V. Bush. 



154 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


R. Cocke, in his book, “Hypnotism; How It is Done; Its Uses 
and Dangers,” has given an account of some experiments 
which confirm our conclusion. He had the courage to make 
a practical experiment in this line. Standing before a deeply 
hypnotized subject, he placed a piece of cardboard in her 
hands, telling her that it was a dagger and commanded her 
to stab him. The command was immediately obeyed. He 
then handed her an open pocket-knife and commanded her 
to stab him. She raised her hand as if to obey the command, 
but hesitated and immediately had an hysterical attack, which 
ended the experiment. The doctor says: “I have tried similar 
experiments upon thirty or forty people with similar results.”* 

In his ‘'Handbook of Life,” Dr. Terry Walter says: 

We become like the things to which we give attention, 
like the things we think about, like the pattern which we hold 
in our mind. Can you check up and be sure that the mind’s 
attention was fixed upon wholesome, courageous, healthful, 
abundant, and pleasant thoughts? Unconsciously you are 
making your life just what it is. 

Any thought which gets into the subconscious mind— 
when the little trap door is open—sets the subconscious mind 
at work. If these are destructive thoughts or constructive 
thoughts, the conscious mind may forget that it has acted as 
a sentinel at the gate to let in to the subconscious these 
thoughts, but the subconscious does not forget.** 

How important—how necessary—how paramount that we 
guard our thinking! Nearly every person has experienced a 
day when things go wrong, and we sometimes say we got out 

*It has been argued that hypnotism will increase crime, 
control people against their will, and weaken the subject’s 
volition. These objections are answered in Fundamentals of 
Practical Psychology, vols. VI and VII. 

**For knowledge of how to protect your children, and for 
a deeper understanding of the subconscious and how it can 
be put to work to accomplish anything desired, see Practical 
Psychology and Sex Life, by Dr. Bush. 



PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OP SUGGESTION 155 


of the wrong side of the bed in the morning. How psychologi¬ 
cally true this is! Hunter says, “Be pleasant every morning 
until ten o’clock, and the rest of the day will take care of 
itself.” The rest of the day runs true to form to the pattern 
of the pleasant thoughts entertained in the morning. On the 
other hand, if are get out of bed with a grouch, ill-humored, 
upset and worried, all the rest of the day is tinctured by the 
thoughts of the previous hours. The conscious mind may 
have dismissed the grouch, but it still lingers in the subcon¬ 
scious. 

May I reiterate, just so any thought which becomes fixed 
in the subconscious, any thought which the conscious mind 
gives an extra amount of attention, becomes fixed in the sub¬ 
conscious and our lives are, therefore, affected accordingly. 

We become like that on which we fix our attention, 
whether it is grouchiness or cheerfulness; whether it is 
abundance or lack; whether it is happiness or despondency; 
whether it is sickness or health. 

You can be what you will, but you will be what you 
think. Your mind is you. Mind is the master power that 
rules. 

An especially elucidating description of the subcon¬ 
scious is given by C. Franklin Leavitt, M. D., in “The 
Laws of Self-development : 1 9 

This unconscious, subconscious, or superconscious—it be¬ 
ing variously designated—is probably the vast universal Mind, 
the primal Substance, the Stuff, the essence of all known 
things, of which we and all intelligent things are but dippings 
or digitations. This means that man shades off from his con¬ 
scious personality into the infinite All. I mean that man is 
a differentiated part of the great Mind, just as my hand, my 
fingers, my nails, my blood vessels, my nerves and even my 
tiny physical cells are a part of me. And just as my several 
parts have their own characteristics, functions, rights, priv¬ 
ileges, and authorities within the scope of their peculiar ao 


156 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


tion, so man—you and I—have autocratic authority within our 
particular domain. As parts of a whole, we have a right to 
draw on the resources of the whole for everything needed to 
make us comfortable and useful. 

“The world,” says Emerson, “proceeds from, the 
same spirit as the body of man. It is a remoter and 
inferior incarnation of God, a projection of God in the 
unconscious. It differs from the body in one respect; 
it is not, like that, subject to the human will.” 

In the opinion of Judge Troward, all of man’s cre¬ 
ative power resides in the subconscious. He says: 

Hence, both from experiment and from a priori reason¬ 
ing, we may say that wherever we find creative power at 
work, there we are in the presence of subjective mind, 
whether it be working on the grand scale of the cosmos, or 
on the miniature scale of the individual. We may, therefore, 
lay it down as a principle that the universal all-permeating 
intelligence, which has been considered in the second and 
third sections, is purely subjective mind, and therefore fol¬ 
lows the law of subjective mind, namely, that it is amenable 
to any suggestion, and will carry out any suggestion that is 
impressed upon it to its most rigorously logical conse¬ 
quences. . . . 

For the present it will be sufficient to realize that the 
subjective mind in ourselves is the same subjective mind 
which is at work throughout the universe, giving rise to the 
infinitude of natural forms with which we are surrounded, and 
in like manner giving rise to ourselves also. It may be called 
the supporter of our individuality; and we may loosely speak 
of our individual subjective mind as our personal share in the 
universal Mind. This, of course, does not imply the splitting 
up of the universal Mind into fractions, and it is to avoid this 
error that I have discussed the essential unity of spirit in the 
third section, but in order to avoid too highly abstract concep- 


PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OF SUGGESTION 157 


tions in the present stage of the student’s progress, we may 
conveniently employ the idea of a personal share in the uni¬ 
versal subjective mind.” 

So we see that man is really a part of the universal Mind— 
God, the creative Principle. Here man is the God power— 
man is God. 

In connection with this phase of the subconscious, the 
following paragraphs from * ‘ The Mental Highway, ’ ’ by 
Dr. Thomas Parker Boyd, are worthy of the deepest 
study: 

Nothing is clearer to the psychologist than the proposition 
that there is a universal Intelligence out of which all individ¬ 
ual intelligences have sprung. All minds are individual points 
of the one mind. So that whenever we think, this universal 
Mind is thinking in us and through us. That we may clearly 
understand this fact, let us study some of the terms to in¬ 
dicate man. 

Man is spoken of as a spirit, soul, mind:, and other terms. A 
careful analysis of these will prevent confusion. 

Spirit is the original life principle in the first living cell, 
out of which have evolved all the countless individual ex¬ 
pressions of life. It is the basic principle in the first cell out 
of which any individual being is developed. It is the fun¬ 
damental entity of consciousness, whether it be a unicelled 
creature, or the perfectly co-ordinated group of cells called 
the human body. It came out of the universal Life and Mind. It 
brought with it into this incarnation the qualities and char¬ 
acteristics of its source. It is the basis of consciousness upon 
which all variant forms of consciousness are constructed. It 
corresponds to the term superconsciousness in psychology. 

The law of cell growth makes every cell to be partaker of 
the nature of its parent cell. When the life of a cell is ex¬ 
tended to its child it carries with it all the qualities of its pa¬ 
rent. As the life principle is thus carried forward through 
countless experiences of cell life, it begins to be clothed with 


158 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


experiences, impressions, and memories of its successive in¬ 
carnations, until it is surrounded by a “mist of matter.” It be¬ 
gins to act otherwise than as pure Spirit or superconscious¬ 
ness. Its activities are influenced by its material surround¬ 
ings and experiences, so that there arises a new form of con¬ 
sciousness, called soul or subconsciousness. 

Soul is, therefore, the original spirit, plus the accretions 
and attritions of all past incarnations which endow it with 
instinct, intuition, desires, impulses, and various forms of 
activity unknown to its basic principle. As these accumulated, 
there arose the necessity for classification of experiences, the 
power to adjust material conditions, and there came into ex¬ 
pression a new instrument of mental activity, called the cere¬ 
brum, with a new functional activity, called mind, or objec¬ 
tive consciousness. 

Mind is, therefore, the soul plus the developed power to act 
consciously in the classification of experiences, to analyze and 
to compare experiences and to form judgments and to act 
upon them intelligently. It has the power to scrutinize the 
reports of subconscious activity; to pass upon all the stored 
up memories of subconsciousness; to form judgments based 
upon its own memories and experiences, as well as to handle 
all the reports arriving every moment through the medium of 
the five senses. The result of these activities is called per¬ 
sonality. 

It is, therefore, obvious that spirit, soul and mind are all a 
part and parcel of the universal Principle of Intelligence of 
life—mind but different degrees. 

Mind functions as conscious, subconscious, and supercon¬ 
scious. Each of these is adapted to the particular realm in 
which it acts. The activities often overlap, but the elements 
of either may be at once detected because the characteristic 
action of each is definite. Any idea bearing the stamp of 
analysis, comparison, induction, synthesis, or conscious deduc¬ 
tion, can be set down as conscious in its origin, while any 
bearing the stamp of deduction from the known experiences 
of human life, can be set down as subconscious, while the 


PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OP SUGGESTION 159 


presence of spontaneous ideas bearing the stamp of absolute 
truth, yet having none of these marks, may be set down as 
superconscious. It has come into consciousness from the uni¬ 
versal Mind. 

Conscious mind reasons in five ways, namely: comparison, 
analysis, synthesis, induction, and deduction. 

Subconscious reasons by one way alone, that of deduction. 

Superconscious does not reason at all; it knows and an¬ 
nounces the truth in its absolute form; hence no reasoning 
is necessary. 

Comparison is the simplest form of reasoning. It consists 
in taking a known fact and contrasting with it a proposed 
one, and by comparison of points of likeness, determines its 
truth or falsity. 

Analysis takes the proposition to pieces and applies the 
method of comparison to each factor, and determines the truth 
of the whole. 

Synthesis gathers a number of known and accepted truths 
into a harmonious working whole. 

Induction takes a large number of similar facts and leads 
them into a common working principle. 

Deduction takes a principle and draws out from it every 
logical sequence. 

Conscious mind uses all of these methods. It is thereby 
enabled to find its way through the maze of experiences which 
are present in consciousness. It is able to pass upon the 
ideas and impulses which rise up from the abysmal depths of 
the subconscious storehouse. It gives man certainty and di¬ 
rection amid the conflicting reports of the objective world. 
By it he is enabled to pass upon his own thoughts and ex¬ 
periences and those of others. It enables him to adapt the 
truth that comes to him from the realm of superconscious, 
and to apply it wisely to the conditions of his life. It is a 
function of consciousness for this life and of this life. It 
could have no place in a monistic world where there is only 
truth. But it alone enables man to meet the countless prob¬ 
lems in a world of dual Expression. 


160 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


The subconscious activity is purely deductive. It cannot 
reason in any other way. It has no power to compare two 
ideas. It, therefore, cannot determine the truth or falsity of 
any proposition presented to it, but accepts the idea offered 
and proceeds to work it out. It is not concerned with the 
question of the right or wrong of any idea. It does not 
question why. It takes and moves into formal expression any 
idea offered it. 

It is the builder of the body. It maintains all the proc¬ 
esses of metabolism whereby the body is renewed. And it 
carries these processes forward according to the ideals fur¬ 
nished it by the conscious mind. It does not originate anything. 
Its creations, such as are seen in dreams, are made up of 
ideas and combinations of ideas received through the chan¬ 
nels of conscious activity. Its dreams may be perfectly logi¬ 
cal or ridiculous, yet it sets them forth in such a way that 
when they are taking place, they seem to be perfectly natural. 
It is only when the dream images begin to rise above the 
plane of conscious action that we are struck with the bizarre 
elements in them or the dream as a whole. 

The subconscious is pre-eminently the creature of sug¬ 
gestion. No idea held in conscious mind fails of receiving 
attention and record. Everything we think of, read, or hear, 
or in any way consciously experience, is at once accepted by 
the subconscious, and is entered as a factor in its processes. 
The strength of the impression measures the power of in¬ 
fluence on the subconscious. An idea may be so strongly 
held in conscious action, that its effects in subconscious will 
be indelibly fixed. Or the milder idea may be repeated often 
enough to produce the same ineradicable impression. Because 
of its one way of reasoning, it is the side of consciousness 
given up to habit. Having started to do a thing in a certain 
way, only profound impression of an opposite idea can change 
its action. This element combined with the fact that the 
memory of the subconscious is perfect, explains its marvelous 
tenacity in reproducing things in body, mind, and disposition 
for which we no longer have any need. This is seen in the 


PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OF SUGGESTION 161 


more than forty vestigial remains of an animal ancestry in 
the body, of more than thirty animal impulses as seen in the 
emotions and dispositions, and in its reproduction of heredi¬ 
tary marks of all sorts in body, mind, and character. 

It is the builder of the body, and the maintainer of its con¬ 
ditions. It keeps the whole body conformed to a general fam¬ 
ily and racial type. It takes care of all the functional ac¬ 
tivities of the body. It feeds and renews the seventeen thou¬ 
sand trillion cells of the body. It carries on chemical process 
in the body that would baffle the most expert chemist, and it 
does these things in accord with what it has learned in the 
past, or what is taught it in the present. Once given an idea 
of doing anything, it never deviates from it unless a new idea 
replaces the old one. 

Its relation, therefore, to the conscious mind is that of the 
builder to the architect. It cannot originate, but it can carry 
out perfectly. Conscious mind must devise the plan upon 
which subconscious will proceed to give it external form. The 
general idea of health and vigor of body will inevitably result 
in such conditions. 

Constant dwelling upon happiness or prosperity or any 
other desired condition will furnish the subconscious builder 
with the plan by which such conditions will be brought about. 
Needless to say, that every negative idea held will work on 
the same principle and will be reproduced in the body and 
conditions. For this reason one must not give place to a 
negative thought, or a negative word, for it will at once be 
accepted by the builder and worked out in the outer. The 
power of mimicry is an endowment of the subconscious, and 
it is universal in all forms of life. It appears in all the lower 
types of life, in animals and in man. One sees it everywhere 
in nature, where the small insects, animals, and birds take on 
the form and color of their surroundings. It appears in the 
larger animal forms, such as the polar bear, whose color con¬ 
forms to his surroundings. It reaches its greatest activity 
in man where it is operated both unconsciously and by in¬ 
tention. We become like those with whom we associate, imi- 


162 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


tating their appearance, form, color, actions, tones of voice, 
and even taking on physical characteristics. 

Upon this endowment the power of good example and right 
associations rest. It imitates bad examples as faithfully as it 
does good. It stimulates the forms and expressions of sick¬ 
ness as fully as it reproduces those of health. It clothes the 
body with the images of power and energy or with weak¬ 
ness and failure, with equal facility. It builds after the 
images of love and confidence or fear and doubt, without 
power to change either. Holding the thought, “I am a weak 
worm of the dust,” will create the impulse to crawl; while to 
hold the thought “I am the son of the Highest,” will make a 
man rise to the mastery of all material and other conditions. 

The subconscious accepts the strongest idea. If it be a 
negative, it will work out its negative results. If positive, 
it will produce positive effects. The affirmation- “I won’t have 
a headache today,” will almost surely result in a headache, 
for headache is the strongest idea in the sentence. One should 
never affirm a negative, and the denial of a negative is best 
avoided. Affirm the positive. If one uses the denial of a 
negative, it should be followed at once by the most positive, 
constructive statement. 

This is an outline of the mechanism of thinking. Study it 
until you understand it, and then begin to use it faithfully, 
and you can produce any condition you desire. If you want 
health, and will keep clear of all thoughts of sickness, filling 
the subconscious with the images of virile, abounding health, 
it will be yours. If you want happiness, and will fill your mind 
with the images of happiness, it will come into realization. If 
you want prosperity, and will hold the idea of what you want 
steadily before the subconscious, it will set in motion the 
dynamic forces that produce abundance. You can do any¬ 
thing you want to do, be anything you want to be, if you 
will use this little key to personal power as indicated in this 
chapter. 

Superconscious mind is that phase of the mind which is 
divine. It does not reason at all: It knows, and announces 


PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OF SUGGESTION 163 


that which it knows. Others may say “This is the truth,” but 
it says, “I am the Truth.” It sees truth, life, and being as 
they are, and announces them. It sees the absolute in which 
there is no error. It sees the absolute in which there is no 
duality of expression. It furnishes the ideal for thought and 
action, and upon these the other sides of the mind may act 
and determine whether they will follow or modify them to 
suit material conditions. It is here that the high visioning 
power of the seers of all ages is found. It announces in the 
terms of mysticism: “Matter is not, sickness is not, poverty is 
not, sin is not, death is not. There is only life and Truth.” 

It is the function of objective consciousness to pass upon 
these statements, to classify and to adapt them to the condi¬ 
tions of material life, and then to give the subconscious 
builder his plans for embodying them in life and char¬ 
acter. 

If you should question that the subconscious mind 
will not accept any immoral suggestion, you may have 
your faith strengthened by recalling that a hypnotic 
subject will likewise not respond to immoral sugges¬ 
tions by the hypnotist. We had a man in our city who 
had a grudge against some person and this man’s 
grudge developed into hatred and murderous intention. 
He, however, did not have enough nerve to commit the 
deed himself, so he hypnotized another man and com¬ 
manded him, while under hypnosis, to commit the mur¬ 
derous act. The subject refused to perform the deed. 
Now, you may tell a hypnotic subject, while under the 
influence, to do almost anything, and if you tell him 
that tomorrow, at 4 o ’clock, he is going to straddle the 
back fence, tomorrow at 4 o’clock he will try to strad¬ 
dle the fence (but he does not know why). The hypnotic 
subject, while under the influence of hypnosis, will do 


164 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


almost anything; but he will not perform an immoral 
act. Neither will the subconscious mind accept an im¬ 
moral suggestion. 

Dr. Walter makes clear the activities of the subcon¬ 
scious in the following: 

When asleep, the conscious mind is dethroned and we 
plunge into the great unknown of subconscious activity; the 
conscious physical manifestations of life are in abeyance and 
the subconscious, the creative mind, that spark of the univer¬ 
sal Consciousness which lives within our body, reigns su¬ 
preme, and its first duty is to replenish energy and to re¬ 
pair and restore the body to normal in accordance with the 
pattern plan of normality as is manifested by natural law. 

The subconscious functions perfectly when left alone, 
but our conscious impressions modify its results, and the sub¬ 
conscious which functions during sleep is the same subcon¬ 
scious whose content we have modified during our waking 
hours, so though we all rest alike in sleep, sinner and saint, 
the quality of our sleep and the joyousness of our dream life 
are determined by the quality of thoughts and impressions 
which the subconscious previously received and registered. 

Thus it is when we understand more fully the laws of 
the soul mind, we can plant suggestions before leaving the 
conscious state which our higher consciousness will work out 
for us while we rest.* 

The subconscious mind, when properly trained, is the 
wonder of the ages. It will do anything for man that 
man wants done. It will lead you to your vocation; it 
will help you raise money; it will bring you friends; it 
will keep love; in fact, there is nothing in the annals 

*See Chapters on Sex Life, in Practical Psychology and Sex 
Life, by Dr. Bush. 



PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OF SUGGESTION 165 


of man’s activity which the subconscious mind cannot 
do if properly trained. 

If the understanding of the functions of the subcon¬ 
scious mind is new to you, a careful, consistent study 
and application of the principles will open wonderful 
avenues of help and strength for you. Some people 
would as soon jump into quicksand as try to apply a 
new truth; but the one who applies the truth knows, by 
actual experience, what the truth will do. Do not think 
that we are talking in hieroglyphics. This is scientif¬ 
ically true, and if there is any crumb of truth anywhere 
let us seek it and find it. The subconscious mind will 
work wonders for you if you will give it a chance. 


166 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


CHAPTER IX 


THE PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OF SUGGESTION— 
Continued 


How the Subconscious May Receive Wrong* Suggestions 
and Work Harm—Changing Wrong Suggestions 
By Replacing With Good—Insanity: Cause 
and Cure by Suggestion—Defectives 
—Lasting Effects of Suggestions 
Received in Early Childhood 

The conscious mind ought to be on the job as “sen¬ 
tinel at the gate” every minute of our waking hours; 
but sometimes this is not done. The little trap door 
sometimes opens when the sentinel is off guard and, 
while the subconscious is unguarded, most dangerous 
thoughts may be suggested to the subjective mind. 
During the height of anger or the excitement of panic, 
or at any time of unrestrained passions or impulses, the 
conditions are most dangerous. The subconscious mind 
then is open to the suggestion of all sorts of negative 
forces derived from the surrounding individuals or 
circumstances. This is the time when suggestions of 
fear, hatred, greed, self-depression, timidity, jealousy, 
etc., may be received and the trap door may close upon 
them. 

You see, the subconscious mind does not reason or 
deduct. It merely takes the stronger suggestion. While 
the sentinel—the conscious mind—is off guard, the sug- 




PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OF SUGGESTION 167 


gestion reaches the subconscious, the trap door closes, 
and no end of mental disturbances, depressions and 
sicknesses follow. 

The unfriendly suggestion in the subconscious mind 
may be caused by envy, jealousy, hatred, or any of 
the negative or highly emotional states. It may be 
caused by misfortune, failure, sorrow, reverses, grief, 
or disappointments. It may be caused by some sup¬ 
pressed idea, thought, emotion, ambition. This sup¬ 
pression may relate to a love affair; it may be the re¬ 
sult of a horrible dream which, by sinking into the 
subconscious mind becomes a part of the subconscious 
activity. It may be mental or physical; or it may 
spring from some psychic impression. People who are 
very sensitive or who have psychic faculties, very often 
register unfriendly images sufficient to cause sickness 
by poisonous chemicalization. 

When any of these events have occurred, the sen¬ 
tinel at the gate has been off guard; the little trap door 
has unconsciously been opened and the wrong impres¬ 
sion has sunk into the subconscious. Then the trap 
door has closed and the unwholesome suggestion has 
created secretions poisonous to the blood, the tissues, 
and the cells of the body. 

Every negative thought has its poisonous effects. 
This is discussed in the chapters which take up the 
“Chemistry of Emotion,”* and we shall therefore not 
dwell upon it here. Suffice it to say in passing that any 
negative thought which reaches the subconscious mind 
and which becomes an obsession there, produces a 

*See chapter on “Chemistry of Emotion.” 



168 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


poisonous chemicalization which, in turn, will produce 
almost any kind of sickness, when the vitality is low¬ 
ered and the body weakened. 

The subconscious mind is the life, the architect, and 
the builder of every electron, atom, molecule, cell, and 
organ in the body. In fact the subconscious mind is 
in every electron, atom, molecule, cell, and organ, and 
can reawake the entire body, or any part of it at com¬ 
mand—suggestion. If the subconscious mind pictures an 
unfriendly suggestion, it not only weaves destructive 
threads into the warp and woof of the physical body, 
but also generates various chemical poisons accord¬ 
ing to the thoughts held and pictured. 

To give a counter-suggestion to the subconscious 
mind by way of the conscious, you must attract the 
attention of the sentinel and open the little trap door 
and thus let in positive and constructive thoughts; 
these will crowd out the destructive thought, will 
change the chemicalization to health, and health will 
ensue. 

Or if a person be timid, fearful, self-conscious, ner¬ 
vous, or jealous; or if the person lack will power, 
concentration, stamina, poise, knowledge, faith, mem¬ 
ory, mental strength, or mastery of self; or if the per¬ 
son be unhappy, have bad habits, lack abundance and 
need a position, any or all of these may be demonstrat¬ 
ed to the patient’s full satisfaction, enjoyment, and 
happiness by also taking suggestions counter to the 
thing they lack or want to overcome, thus opening the 
little trap door, making such counter-suggestion to 
crowd out the old thought, and to usher in the new. 


PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OP SUGGESTION 169 


This illustration will emphasize our point: One of 
my patients, who had been given up by world celebrat¬ 
ed surgeons, came home with no hope from the medical 
profession. It was heart failure and the doctors said 
there was no chance for her life. In asking, as is usual¬ 
ly my method, what sorrow, grief, disappointment, re¬ 
verses or excitement had come into her life about the 
time this sickness began, I found that she had been 
extremely frightened while in a dentist’s chair (it 
wasn’t the dentist’s fault, I suppose, it was the con¬ 
dition of the patient’s nerves and her mind). While 
in the chair she was so frightened that the dentist was 
unable to finish the extracting, so that she had to come 
back the next day. 

My prognosis was correct. While this patient was 
in the dental chair, filled with fear, the sentinel, the 
conscious mind, opened the little trap door and fright 
lodged in the subconscious. This fear—fright—in the 
subconscious mind had a depressing effect upon the 
system which became localized in the heart. Heart 
failure ensued. Now, back of every sickness or illness 
is some mental disturbance—some kink in the mind. 
When I went to see this patient, the family was hardly 
able to assist her into a chair. She had been given up 
and was dying from heart failure. I called about 1:30 
p. m. and that evening this woman cooked the supper. 

Not only did this woman get her supper that evening, 
but she was permanently cured, by being given a 
stronger counter-suggestion. The counter-suggestion 
opened the little trap door, crowded out the fear— 
fright—thought, and normality followed. 


170 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


Every sickness, every mental disturbance and every 
depression in life can be overcome by the proper sug¬ 
gestion to the subconscious mind. If such negative 
thoughts have entered the subconscious, furnishing the 
gunpowder which may be liable to blow up all your 
happiness, peace and poise, a counter-suggestion will 
prevent the powder from being touched off and there 
will be no blow-up. 

Just as Beethoven put a girdle of harmony around 
the world, just so the subconscious mind will put a 
wall of protection around man, for every need. 

Bennett was a crazy colored man in a hospital for the 
insane. When he was calm you. could not detect that 
there was anything wrong with Bennett, but when he 
became enraged he would take the ordinary iron bed¬ 
steads used in such institutions and, without any im¬ 
plements but his bare hands, bend these bedsteads out 
of shape. This power lay in the subconscious mind. 

Every person has an equal amount of power for con¬ 
structive right thinking and living in the subconscious 
mind, which, if properly put to work, would become the 
miracle-worker for each individual. 

The dead embers of one's ambition often begin again 
to flicker in the subconscious mind. Psychology 
teaches us how to fan this spark into being, into life 
and crystallization. 

Hartmann says: 

The unconscious does not fall ill, the unconscious does 
not grow weary, but all conscious mental activity becomes 


PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OP SUGGESTION 171 


fatigued. This is partly why involuntary muscles driven 
unconsciously do not get fatigued as the voluntary muscles 
soon do. 

All marriages should be made in the subconscious 
mind. All permanently happy unions have their sub¬ 
conscious basis. “There is something in every loved 
man or woman which cannot be grasped by reason or 
expressed in words/’ We express this by saying a per¬ 
son is “genial,’’ because he partakes of the other’s 
genius or spirit. Without this affinity in the subcon¬ 
scious realm, even brilliancy or intellectual beauty may 
fail to satisfy. It is this which lifts true love above the 
visual and sensual and gives it a profound moral sig¬ 
nificance, for the subconscious is purer than the con¬ 
scious and if any part of our being be permanent, we 
believe this to be the subjective mind. 

The subconscious furnishes the mental power and the 
spiritual motor for the structures of great men. 

Dr. Thomas Parker Boyd sheds a great deal of light 
on the creative forces of the subconscious in the fol¬ 
lowing : 

It is the mind of God. It was originally part of the un¬ 
divided mind of the universe; that is, before there were any 
individual expressions of mind or being. When, in the cre¬ 
ative process, life, or mind took individual form of expres¬ 
sion, it brought into this limited form all the qualities of the 
Absolute. And as it passed up by an evolutionary process 
until life reached the human form divine, it had been clothed 
with all the memories and impressions and experiences of all 
of our ancestors, from the first unicelled creature. These con¬ 
stitute the “mist of matter” through which mind functions as 
subconscious, and is referred to in Genesis where it is said 


172 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


that “there went up a mist over the whole earth.” Mind 
functioning through this mist does not see clearly, but sees 
“through a glass darkly,” as St. Paul says. The basic prin¬ 
ciple of mind, as manifested in the subconscious, is divine. It 
is the mind of God. 

Baudouin says: 

Psychology enables us to enter the subconscious, to open 
ways for us into the hidden recesses of our being. It thereby 
greatly enlarges our knowledge of ourselves, disclosing the 
causes of what we have hitherto known only as effects. Since 
knowledge is power, they increase our command of life. At 
the same time they meet the wishes of William James, who 
regretted the way in which we live only on the surface of 
things. Henceforward we can penetrate into the depths, and 
we are entitled to expect great results from these new pos¬ 
sibilities. 

Hence the importance of understanding first, the sub¬ 
conscious mind, and second, the law of suggestion— 
autosuggestion. 

Again Baudouin says: 

Suggestion, therefore, is nothing more than autosuggestion. 
It is an active process which goes on in the interior of the in¬ 
dividual, and whose starting point is an idea. 

It is obvious to the reader how important it is what 
ideas we entertain in our conscious mind. We become 
like that which we think. This has been scientifically 
demonstrated and is being applied in the lives of hun¬ 
dreds of thousands of people, wherever civilization 
reigns. 

Just as like attracts like, and like produces like, so 
our conscious thinking impresses itself upon the sub- 


PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OF SUGGESTION 173 


conscious mind, and it in turn produces in the ex¬ 
ternal where the likeness, or replica, of the ideas is 
held in the subconscious mind. 

For instance, before the contractor builds a house, he 
has the architect plan the building and make blue 
prints of the plan. We are our own architects. Our 
thoughts are the blue prints, and whatever ideas we 
hold in our conscious which are passed on to the sub¬ 
conscious (See chapter on Suggestion) become the 
blue print within, which, in time, is manifested or ma¬ 
terialized without. 

Hence, if we think poverty, we have poverty. 

In this connection, Dr. Terry Walter writes: 

The impressions that enter the subconscious form indelible 
pictures, which are never forgotten, and whose power can 
change the body, mind, manner, and morals; can, in fact, 
revolutionize a personality. 

All during our waking hours the conscious mind, through 
the five senses; acts a constant feeder to the subconscious; the 
senses are the temporal source of supply for the content of the 
soul mind; therefore it is most important that we know and 
realize definitely and explicitly that every time we think a 
thought or feel an emotion, we are adding to the content of 
this powerful mind, good or bad, as the case may be. Life 
will be richer or poorer for the thoughts and deeds of today. 

“To be ambitious for wealth/’ says Baudouin, “and 
yet always expecting to be poor; to be always doubting 
your ability to get what you long for, is like trying to 
reach east by traveling west. There is no philosophy 
which will help a man to succeed when he is always 
doubting his ability to do so, and thus attracting fail¬ 
ure. 


174 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


“You will go in the direction in which you face. . . . 

“There is a saying that every time the sheep bleats, 
it loses a mouthful of hay. Every time you allow your¬ 
self to complain of your lot, to say, ‘I am poor; I can 
never do what others do; I shall never be rich; I have 
not the ability that others have; I am a failure; luck 
is against me/ you are laying up so much trouble for 
yourself. . . . 

“No matter how hard you may work for success, if 
your thought is saturated with the fear of failure, it 
will kill your efforts, neutralize your endeavors, and 
make success impossible.” 

In “New Thought Healing Made Plain /’ Kate At¬ 
kinson Boehme gives advice which, if consistently and 
persistently followed, will change any life from failure 
to success; from sickness to health; from poverty to 
prosperity: 

Try the effect upon the subconscious mind of vigorous, 
positive, living words. When you are weak, affirm that you 
are strong. Remember the hypnotized subject, who, through 
suggestion, acquired such tremendous power, though his 
muscles were flabby and his body puny. The only difference 
between hypnotic suggestion and autosuggestion is that in the 
former the conscious mind of the subject is made quiescent, 
and is thus unable to foist its doubts on the subconscious 
mind, so that the latter, not being handicapped by doubt, 
can accept the suggestion and act upon it without hindrance. 
In autosuggestion you will have doubt to contend with, so 
it will take longer to get results, but if you persist, you 
will finally cast out doubt and thus obtain a clear channel 
for infinite Power to flow through you from centre to cir¬ 
cumference. 


PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OF SUGGESTION 175 


Even though you are overwhelmed by poverty, sickness, 
and sorrow, affirm the opposite. Say with all the earnest¬ 
ness you can muster: I am rich; I am well; I am happy. 
Say it again and again, day after day, though all things con¬ 
spire to give the lie to your words. If you do this faithfully, 
you will at last enable the subconscious mind to make your 
words come true. 

If you throw bicarbonate of soda into an acid, you correct 
its acidity. By a law certain and unvarying you can sweeten 
by affirmation the sourest states of body and environment. 

Dr. Winbigler uses analogy, to make clear how the 
subconscious uses suggestion: 

The relation of suggestion to the subconscious mind may 
be rudely stated as that of key and lock. The power by which 
this mind will open and reveal its treasures is suggestion. 

The most remarkable manifestations of knowledge and 
power occur when the conscious mind is held in check. Sug¬ 
gestion is the key that unlocks the doors into the real indi¬ 
vidual life and lets us get a glimpse into the wealth, power, 
and possibilities of the subconscious mind. . . . 

The supreme power that is the key of this mind, as well 
as a potent factor in bringing forth its hidden treasures and 
inspiring it to do what is best and noblest, is suggestion. 

In “The Unconscious Mind,” Dr. Alfred T. Schofield 
shows the effect of suggestion, to wit: 

Soldiers in victory remain practically insensible to cold. 
Hunger and thirst are modified by the condition of the mind. 
Thirst is often removed by attention being diverted. On the 
other hand, it is very common among soldiers at the beginning 
of a battle. Soldiers in battle seldom feel any pain in the 
wounds until the battle is over. Carpenter says, and the 
writer can bear most emphatic testimony to the same fact, 
that he has often found in speaking, when suffering from 


176 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


severe rheumatic pain, that it has entirely ceased to be per¬ 
ceived until he sat down, when it returned in full force. 

Pains, it is well known, go when the doctor comes, ana 
toothache ceases in the dentist’s room. 

Dr. Carpenter discusses the question in such instances as 
to whether the pain has been consciously felt though not 
remembered. He rightly considers this as a mere assump¬ 
tion; for, although the changes may occur in the sensorium, 
they cannot he said to he felt without consciousness. 

During the O’Connell agitation in Ireland, Lord Anglesey, 
who had suffered for years continuously from tic-douloureux, 
was quite free from pain.* 

It may be well in passing to point out the fact that 
sensations of various kinds—suggestions—may be pro¬ 
duced by memory. For instance, giddiness on knowing 
we are approaching a great height or dangerous path, 
is often felt—the result of unconscious memory of sim¬ 
ilar positions. This is never felt by animals. 

Dr. Schofield tells of Miss Frances Power Cobbe who 
sat in a room to write where she had sat and studied 
eight years before. She felt her feet moving restlessly 
under the table, and then remembered eight years be¬ 
fore, she always had a footstool. It was this the feet 
were seeking.** 

Hack Tuke tells us that “when young, he always had 
to cross a rough arm of the sea in a small steamboat, 
when he was invariably sick. On the boat was an old 

*Greville, Journal of the Reigns of George IV and William 
IV, vol. II, p. 109. 

**F. P. Cobbe, Darwinism, p. 326. 



PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OF SUGGESTION 177 


blind fiddler. The result was that, for years after, he 
never could hear the violin without experiencing nau¬ 
sea.” 

In 1882, Braine, of Charing Cross hospital, as recorded 
by Tuke, effected complete anaesthesia with a clean inhaler 
and no smell of chloroform, and two sebaceous scalp tumors 
were removed. On removing the inhaler between the two, the 
patient (a girl) began to get conscious, but went off again on 
reapplying it, and declared she felt nothing all through. Ten 
years after, he gave air only in an inhaler and ten teeth 
were extracted without any pain being felt. 

The foregoing is cited by Dr. Schofield, and he says 
further : 

The smell of ether, three inches from the nose, has pro¬ 
duced anaesthesia and heavy breathing. 

Gratiolet tells us of a law student who, being present for 
the first time at an operation on the ear, felt at the same time 
such a sharp pain in his own ear that he involuntarily put his 
hand to it and cried out . . . 

There seems no reasonable grounds for doubting that, in 
certain chosen subjects, congestion, burns, blisters, raised 
papules, bleeding from the nose or skin can be produced by 
suggestion. 

Dr. Charles Barrows reports results of suggestion, as 
follows : 

I treated two incurably insane persons, in order to sup¬ 
press certain disagreeable nervous movements to which they 
were addicted, and found it impossible to hold their attention 
for even a moment; but the suggestion produced the desired 
effect. 


178 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


Dr. Schofield cites the following: 

Hack Tuke gives the following instances of functional dis¬ 
eases of mental origin: 

“A healthy boy was lying in his cradle when a cock 
perched on the side; the boy was at first amazed, but after¬ 
wards was afraid, as the cock stretched his neck, put his head 
down and looked closely at the boy; the cock then flapped his 
wings and crowed. The child gave one sharp cry of pain and 
was instantly convulsed, three or four fits occurred the same 
day, and the boy grew up an idiot.” 

When we consider that the mind of man is a part and 
parcel of the universal Mind we see how incongruous 
or inconsistent it would be to consider such a thing as 
mental defectives. Mental defectives or abnormal men¬ 
tal people are deficient because of some suggestion, 
either at birth, a few minutes after, or one year or 
more.* 

We are beginning to believe now that there is no such 
thing as a child born mentally defective. The child 
receives an impression or suggestion, at birth, or a few 
minutes after, or later in life. There is a noted phy¬ 
sician in the employment of the Government, working 
to cure insane people, who tells me that he has had the 
same experience that we healers have; that he can 
talk directly to the subconscious minds of the in¬ 
sane and heal them. He has not yet given the world 
the results of his investigations, for obvious reasons. 
There is, for example, to be considered the tyranny of 
certain organized societies that would ostracize him and 
perhaps cause him to lose his job. That he is healing 

*This has been discussed in Practical Psychology and Sex 
Life, by Dr. Bush. 



PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OF SUGGESTION 179 


insane people and that he believes insanity is a matter 
of suggestion are hopeful spots in my investigation of 
mental phenomena during the last decade. 

This learned doctor associates with the insane, and 
talks directly to their subconscious minds. The patients 
are often listless, apparently giving so little heed to 
what goes on about them as to give the impression that 
they are absolutely unconscious of what the doctor is 
saying to them. After talking ten or fifteen minutes to 
their subconscious minds, as though the patients were 
normal, and as though all were going well with them, 
he leaves them. Some time afterwards, he is delight¬ 
fully surprised when these patients, in their normal 
minds, tell him that they knew all the time what he w T as 
saying; but they seemed to be unable either to recog¬ 
nize or to appreciate the effort he was making in their 
behalf. 

In “Mind Power and Privileges/’ we find the fol¬ 
lowing : 

No matter how delirious or how profound the coma, the 
subjective mind can receive suggestions. The complete abey¬ 
ance of the objective mind may only increase the acumen of 
the subjective mind. In support of this idea, I will call to 
the reader’s mind the fact that the profound objective sleep 
of hypnotism increases the attention and activities of the 
subjective mind. 

Why not, if the coma is brought on from pathological 
causes? 

And Marden makes the following interesting obser¬ 
vations : 

Whence comes the power which enables a frail, delicate 
woman, invalid for years, unable to wait upon herself, with 


180 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


hardly strength enough to walk across the floor, to rush up¬ 
stairs and drag out sleeping children from a burning home? 
Whence comes the strength which enables such a delicate 
creature to draw out furniture and bedding from a house on 
fire? Certainly no new strength has been added to the mus¬ 
cle, no new strength to the blood, but still she does what, 
under ordinary conditions, would have been impossible for 
her. In the emergency she forgets her weakness, she sees 
only the emergency. The danger of her darling child, the loss 
of her home, stare her in the face. She believes firmly, for 
the time, that she can do what she attempts to do, and she 
does it. It is changed condition of the mind, not changed 
blood or muscle, that gives the needed energy. The muscle 
has furnished the power, but the conviction of the ability to 
do the thing was first necessary. The fire, the danger, the 
excitement, the necessity of saving life and property, the tem¬ 
porary forgetfulness of her supposed weakness—these were 
necessary to work the mind to the proper state. 

Dr. Julia Seton says: 

Insanity is nothing more or less than dissociated states 
of mind, and need not, in reality, be any more serious than 
errors of refraction of vision, faulty locomotion, or lack of 
co-ordination. It comes because individuals know nothing 
of the psychology of themselves or their own minds, and is 
the result of over-intensified mental and physical activity and 
loss of poise, physically, mentally, and psychically. The in¬ 
sane are not capable of understanding themselves, and up to 
the present day there are very few who are able to under¬ 
stand them. 

Boris Sidis says: “Ideas, impressions implanted in 
the subconscious self, when accidentally dissociated 
from the upper personality, rise to the periphery of con¬ 
sciousness as insistent ideas, imperative concepts, and 
uncontrollable impulses of all sorts and descriptions. In 


PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OF SUGGESTION 181 


hypnotic, and especially in post-hypnotic suggestion we 
hold the key to all forms of conceptual and impulsive 
insanity.” By impulsive insanity is meant a state of 
abnormal mental condition in which the victim may be 
seized with an impulse to strike, to rend clothing, to 
bite, to set fire to buildings or objects (pyromania), 
to steal (kleptomania), homicidal or suicidal impulses. 

In nearly every one of my campaigns, I am asked, 
“Why is it that God has given to man a soul possess¬ 
ing such transcendent powers in certain directions, and 
yet under the absolute control in all its ideas and in¬ 
tellectual functions, of a finite, perishable intelli¬ 
gence ? ’ ’ 

Perhaps no one has better answered this than the 
great master writer, Thomas Jay Hudson, who says: 

The broad an dcomprehensive answer is, To constitute man 
a free moral agent. It needs no argument to show that if the 
soul were not so limited in its initiative power of reasoning, 
the finite, mortal man could not he held responsible for the 
moral status of his soul. God gave to objective man the pow¬ 
ers of reason, inductive as well as deductive, for the purpose 
of enabling him successfully to struggle with his physical 
environment. He gave him the power to know the right from 
the wrong. He gave him supreme control of the initial proc¬ 
esses of reasoning, and thus made him responsible for the 
moral status of his soul. The soul, in the meantime, so long 
as it inhabits the body, is charged with limited responsibil¬ 
ities. It is the life principle of the body, and its normal 
functions pertain solely to the preservation of human life and 
the perpetuation of the human race. It possesses wonderful 
powers in other directions, under certain abnormal conditions 
of the body, it is true. But their exercise outside of those 
limits is always abnormal, and productive of untoward re- 


182 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


suits. Those powers of which we catch occasional glimpses, 
and which so excite our admiration, are powers which pertain 
to its existence in a future world. They are powers which pro¬ 
claim it as a part of God, as partaking of the nature and 
attributes of the Divine Mind. Its powers of perception of the 
fixed laws of nature demonstrate its kinship to omniscience. 
It is independent of the feeble powers of inductive reasoning 
when it is freed from its earthly trammels; and there is not 
one power or attribute peculiar to the finite, objective mind 
that could be of any service to the soul in its eternal home. 
We boast of our powers of inductive reason, forgetting how 
little we have learned, or ever can know, compared with what 
there is to learn. We forget that they are the outgrowth of 
our physical wants and necessities, and simply enable us to 
grope in the dark for the means of subsistence, and to render 
our physical existence tolerable. 

It may be set down as an axiom in spiritual phenomena 
that there is not one power or function of the conscious 
mind which distinguishes it from those of the subcon¬ 
scious entity that could be of any service to the latter 
when it is freed from its earthly environment. 

And Tansley comes to this conclusion: 

The most important general conclusion reached is that 
the abnormal activities of the mind, as seen in cases of 
hysteria and insanity, are but extreme and unbalanced de¬ 
velopments of characteristics and functions which form in¬ 
tegral parts of the normal healthy mind. 

Dr. Louis Walstein writes at length on this subject: 

The modern treatment of the insane has been largely in¬ 
fluenced by such observations, which have been applied in 
methods whereby the patient is to be insensibly led into the 
condition of his normal existence. At Gheel, in Belgium, 


PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OF SUGGESTION 183 


especially, this system has been most thoroughly and success¬ 
fully applied. The patients who are not a menace to the 
surroundings live there in perfect freedom among the other 
inhabitants of the village, in a condition as nearly like their 
previous existence as possible, and engaged in work which 
may tend to rekindle the spirit of emulation and ambition in 
their enfeebled “conscious” selves. But, unfortunately, this 
part of the mind is broken, its associations with the individual 
impulse of the disused mind loosened, so that it fails to an¬ 
swer to the stimuli that are offered everywhere by the trained 
physician and the admirable accoutrements of most asylums 
in our time; and I have often wondered whether a system¬ 
atic appeal to the subconscious self of the insane might not 
hold out more promise of curative results. 

It is true that music and the other arts have been and 
are employed, often with most beneficent effect; but I have 
in mind a more extended and especially a more individualized 
application of those impressions most likely to produce sym¬ 
pathetic resonance upon the deepest chords of the mental 
apparatus. To begin with, I should follow the usual mode of 
inquiry in every case, exhausting every means of information 
in order to penetrate into the character of the subconscious 
self of the patient, and, having possessed myself of this 
knowledge, apply the means most apt to reach and modify it. 
The impressionability of the insane patient is manifest, else 
there could be no insanity. But it must be borne in mind that 
this impressionability resides in such individuals in the sub¬ 
conscious self. This must therefore be reached, and reached, 
moreover, by subconscious impressions apt to create moods 
and emotions, and hence impulses and actions: colors, music, 
scents, gustatory and other sensations, might be chosen, 
albeit with the greatest care, and with a due regard to the 
individuality of the patient and the nature of his subcon¬ 
scious self. And, as we have found the admission and re¬ 
tention of such impressions to be most readily attained in the 
period before sleep under normal conditions, so this time 
may prove to be the most propitious for the alterative effect 


184 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


of these measures, aided by a possible dreamlike continuation; 
especially as it is known that insane persons are subject 
to dreams. Calmeil has devoted much attention to the sub¬ 
ject of the dreams of the insane; and from his careful ob¬ 
servation, it follows that there exists a continuous connection 
between their hallucinations in the waking state and their 
dreams. 

Can one help being reminded here of Shakespeare’s won¬ 
derful intuition in awakening the mad old king by the soft 
strains of lovely music, and thus freeing him from madness? 

The insane are being healed now also by music.* 

Alfred T. Schofield, M. D., shows the power of sug¬ 
gestion in the following: 

Sir James Paget tells of very severe parotitis, or in¬ 
flammation of the salivary gland, occurring in a man of 
sixty-nine, from the sight of acid food. When >a boy he was 
always upset at the sight of vinegar.** 

Freud seems to believe that the subconscious in 
childhood has a very high degree of sensitivity, and 
retains throughout the lifetime the suggestions and im¬ 
pressions received during the earliest years. Of this, 
Pfister and Payne, in their book, “The Psychoanalytic 
Method/’ state as follows: 

Freud has carried the idea of child life being of importance 
to the individual more than any other writer of his generation. 
Everywhere he seeks to show infantile sources; even the 
thousandfold needs of the neuroses and psychoses, as well 
as the formation of character, take their origin in earliest 
child life and here receive their guiding impulses. As the 
tree has to suffer for a lifetime, for injuries done to it when 


♦Practical Psychology and Sex Life, by the author. 

**Sir James Paget, Studies from an Old Casebook, p. 109. 



PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OF SUGGESTION 185 


just pushing its shoots above the ground, so also the human 
mind. And more: All neurotic troubles, so far as they nro- 
ceed from mental causes, have an infantile previous history, 
without which they could not have come into existence.* 

Freud in his epoch-making book, “A General Intro¬ 
duction to Psychoanalysis,” takes the premise that all 
neurosis dates back to sexual love, instinct, expression, 
or suppression. After showing that not only sex curi¬ 
osity of children begins in early childhood—sometimes 
before the third year—but that even before this there 
is sexual gratification, and that when the child is later 
taught that society is averse to the sex liberties which 
the child’s instinct desires, and he must conform his sex 
habits to the recognized standard of society, this sup¬ 
pression—even in early childhood—may be the cause 
for traumatic consequences and neurosis conditions. In 
the chapter on the subject of the sex life of man, the 
great psychoanalyst says: 

The sexual interest of children generally turns first to 
the mystery of birth—the same problem that is the basis of 
the questions asked by the sphinx of Thebes- This curiosity 
is, for the most part, aroused by the selfish fear of the arrival 
of a new child. The answer which the nursery has ready 
for the child, that the stork brings children, is doubted far 
more frequently than we imagine, even by very young chil¬ 
dren. The feeling that he has been cheated out of the truth 
by grown-ups, contributes greatly to the child’s sense of 
solitude and to his independent development. But the child 
i3 not capable of solving this problem unaided. His un¬ 
developed sexual constitution restricts his ability to under- 


*For a study of this phase of the mind of man, see Psycho¬ 
analytic Method, by Pfister and Payne, and Fundamentals of 
Practical Psychology, volume VI, Psychoanalysis, by Dr. Bush. 



186 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


stand. At first he assumes that children are produced by a 
special substance in one’s food and does not know that 
only women can bear children. Later he learns of this 
limitation and relinquishes the derivation of children from 
food—a supposition retained in the fairy tale. The growing 
child soon notices that the father plays some part in re¬ 
production, but what it is he cannot guess. If, by chance, 
he is witness of a sexual act, he sees in it an attempt to 
subjugate, a scuffle, the sadistic miscomprehension of coitus; 
he does not, however, relate this act immediately to the 
evolution of the child. When he discovers traces of blood 
on the bedsheets, or on the clothing of his mother, he con¬ 
siders them the proof of an injury inflicted by the father. 
During the latter part of childhood, he imagines that the 
sexual organ of the man plays an important part in the 
evolution of children, but can ascribe only the function of 
urination to that part of his body. 

From the very outset, children unite in believing that the 
birth of the child takes place through the anus; that the 
child therefore appears as a ball of feces. After anal in¬ 
terests have been proven valueless, he abandons this theory 
and assumes that the navel opens or that the region between 
the two breasts is the birthplace of the child. In this way, 
the curious child approaches the knowledge of sexual facts, 
which, clouded by his ignorance, he often fails to see. In the 
years prior to puberty, he generally receives an incomplete, 
disparaging explanation which often causes traumatic con¬ 
sequences. 

The effects of impression and suggestion received in 
childhood, as to birth and origin, do remain throughout 
the life, and are sometimes the cause of serious com¬ 
plexes and nearly all forms of neuroses. Albert B. 
Olston says: 

No discovery made has given such an insight into human 
nature as has the law of suggestion and its control of the 
subjective mind of man. 


PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OP SUGGESTION 187 


In the Encyclopedia Americana is the following by 
Dr. Smith Ely Jelliffe, of Columbia university: 

Unquestionably the oldest and yet youngest therapeutic 
agent is suggestion. The power to heal by faith is not the 
special property of any sect or class, nor the exclusive 
right of any system. Belief in gods and goddesses, prayer 
to idols of wood, of stone, of gossamer fiction, faith in the 
doctor, belief in ourselves engendered from within or without 
—these are all expressions of the great therapeutic value 
for healing that resides in the influence of mental states on 
bodily functions. 

It is no new theory that suggestion may he used to 
influence the characteristics of offspring. In discuss¬ 
ing this subject, Dr. A. T. Schofield says: 

Then as regards offspring: There is no physical cause 
discovered why ova should develop according to their kind. 
To talk of a law impressed on matter is to use mere words. 
How can a law be impressed on matter? As a seal or wax? 
Or as the polar arrangements of parts in a solid? If so, 
it is discernible by the microscope, and then it would not be 
a law but a phenomenon. 

I am indeed inclined to regard the development of an 
ovum according to kind as the result of a strictly immaterial 
and spiritual agency. 

Though the writer of the above was no psychologist he 
was a scientific man and an acute thinker, and we believe 
that now there are comparatively few that will deny the 
psychic causes at work. It has been beautifully said “an 
organized being is the product of the unconscious memory 
of an organism.” 

Herbert Spencer says: “It is proved that no germ, animal 
or vegetable, contains the slightest rudiment, trace, or indica¬ 
tion of the future organism—since the microscope has shown 
us that the first process set up in every fertilized germ is 


188 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


a process of repeated spontaneous fissure, ending in the pro¬ 
duction of a mass of cells, not one of which exhibits any 
special character.” 

Surely stronger evidence could not be given in favor of 
Kingsley’s belief. 

Atkinson says: 

And . . . this subconscious mind is amenable to sug¬ 
gestion, good and evil, from the conscious mind of its owner, 
as well as from the outside. 


PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OF SUGGESTION 189 


CHAPTER X 


THE PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OF SUGGESTION— 

Continued 


How to Use Autosuggestion—Suggestion As Mental 

Medicine—Universal Use of Suggestion—Effects 
of Suggestion Permanent—Educating the Sub¬ 
conscious in Its Relation to Suggestion. 

Autosuggestion is suggesting to one’s self. Some one 
has very humorously put it: “It is a case of ‘Says I to 
myself, says IP ” Also all suggestion is autosugges¬ 
tion, because any suggestion, no matter how it is re¬ 
ceived by the individual, if it is accepted by him, is, so 
to speak, endorsed by him when it becomes lodged in 
the subconscious. 

We cannot do better than to present to the reader, in 
the language of Frederick Pierce, in “Our Unconscious 
Mind,” his able discussion of autosuggestion and what 
it will accomplish: 

Without undertaking here the presentation, impossible in 
the scope of this hook, of the technique ... it will be 
practicable to outline at least two simple ways of applying 
autosuggestion which can be used with valuable results 
even though only the most rudimentary methods are em¬ 
ployed. One is implanting in the mind an advance outline 
of the day. The other is giving the mind something con¬ 
structive to work on during sleep. Several years ago, I 
heard a successful executive tell a group of young men how 
he did his work, and included in the talk was the advice 




190 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


to prepare at the close of each day’s business a list of the 
ten most important things for the next day. To this I 
would add: Run them over in the mind just before going 
to sleep, not thoughtfully, or with elaboration of detail, but 
with the sure knowledge that the deeper centers of the mind 
are capable of viewing them constructively even though 
conscious attention is surrendered in sleep. 

Then, if there is a particular problem which seems 
difficult of solution, review its features lightly as a last 
game for the imaginative unconscious to play at during the 
night. Do not he discouraged if no immediate results are 
apparent. Remember that fiction, poetry, musical composition, 
inventions, innumerable ideas, spring from the unconscious, 
often in forms that give evidence of the highest constructive 
elaboration. 

Give your unconscious a chance. Give it the material, 
and stimulate it with a keenly dwelt-on wish along frank 
Ego Maximation lines. It is a habit which, if persisted in, 
will sooner or later present you with some very valuable ideas 
when you least expect them. 

The unconscious, we remember, can expend energy with¬ 
out perceptible fatigue. The foreconscious and conscious, 
however, have working limits which may not be disregarded 
without either a falling off in the quality of work or a deple¬ 
tion of vital reserves. The day’s work, therefore, should, in 
the case of the average man or woman, be dismissed absolute¬ 
ly when the business day is finished. 

I have known several organizations in which certain of 
the executives were filled with the idea that instilling “pep” 
into the staff depended upon overstimulating themselves with 
the caffeine in strong coffee, thumping the lunch table, and 
declaring that, “Every man in this organization has got to 
eat and sleep our proposition day and night!” An excellent 
way to implant affects of fatigue, fear, and resistance; but 
a poor way to make men and women love their work. Sup¬ 
pose, instead, that the executive were to say to his men: “Looh 
here, fellows, I’m going to give a Monday off, and two theater 


PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OP SUGGESTION 191 


tickets, to the man who first discovers something about our 
product that I don’t know. If it’s a good selling point, I’ll 
give him four tickets instead of two. If it’s a fault and he 
can show a way to correct it. I’ll raise his salary!” And 
suppose he keeps a watchful eye on his staff to detect signs 
of overwork, over-thinking, worry, ill health, and makes both 
men and women feel that he is concerned about their wel¬ 
fare as human beings instead of only as cogs in the machin¬ 
ery. Not only will the results be better, but they will be 
cumulative. Getting the best out of a human being begins 
with understanding how a mind functions below the com 
scious level. 

Going to one’s work in the morning is rarely done witlj 
mental preparation.* Herein lies a major cause of lost mo¬ 
tion and lack of pleasure in production. The spirit of the 
day is of tremendous importance, and a few minutes given 
to it each morning while preparing for the day will paj 
extraordinary dividends in accomplishment and happiness. 
Let a young man or young woman, immediately on rising, 
and while dressing, run over in the mind some such thought 
as this, “This day, like every day, is full of opportunity to 
make people realize the sincerity of my purposes, the cheer¬ 
fulness of my disposition, the willingness and value of my 
service. I shall carry with me the sense of energy, poise, 
courage, resourcefulness, and good cheer. I need not be self- 
conscious about it because the qualities make themselves 
felt without the need of effort, provided I feel them myself. 
Throughout the day I am going to make people glad I am in 
the world.” And just before entering office or factory, let 
the same thought recur, not necessarily repeated in full, 
but as a definite and complete idea. If this is made a daily 
habit, there will soon be the realization of increased personal 
power and of a clear response from one’s associates. 

The value to an organization, of beginning each day in 
this spirit, is incalculable. It is effective from the first mo- 


♦This has been discussed at great length in Practical Psy¬ 
chology and Sex Life, by Dr. Bush. 



192 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


ment at desk, bench, or machine. Its quality is apparent 
in face, voice, and manner. Moreover, the quality gets into 
the work itself, improves it, speeds it, makes it go forward 
with new life. The perceptible effect upon the relation with 
one’s fellow workers is not long in following. There will be 
less of the personal attitude, less fruitless and futile emotion¬ 
alizing of those contacts which have not been agreeable and 
harmonious. There is nothing more wasteful in the business 
day than the displacement of energy in acrimonious or com¬ 
bative encounters; just as there is nothing more annoying 
to a busy executive than to have an assistant whose chief 
unconscious concern is to direct his attention to herself and 
her affairs. In my judgment, an organization, regardless of 
the value of the service rendered, should lose no time in 
ridding itself of the person who will not fit, impersonally, 
into the team; provided that the fault has been pointed out 
and there has been no perceptible effort at correction. The 
spirit of the day can be disrupted over and over again by a 
single individual who is preoccupied with self, unable to get 
the businesslike, impersonal attitude; or who is ever ready 
to see a fancied slight and resent it. 

Contrasted with the spirit of the day, the spirit of the 
organization comes first from headquarters and then from 
department executives and foremen. I once heard a famous 
orchestra conductor say, “I must have the score in my head 
—not my head in the score. I should know my music well 
enough so that I can give my eyes to my men. A conductor 
with his head in the score is a poor conductor; he will soon 
find his men have their heads in the score too—and have for¬ 
gotten all about him!” Department heads, indeed the Big 
Boss himself, may well take this to heart. A president who 
forgets his men will soon find they have forgotten him, and 
that his power to influence them is gone. The sales manager 
who thinks always of sales and seldom of salesmen, is a 
“poor conductor.” A foreman who thinks only of production 
and never of the producers, may be liked by the superinten- 


PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OF SUGGESTION 193 


dent, but he will not be liked by his men, and will soon lose 
his most effective grip on them. 

A department head who looks after the welfare and com¬ 
fort of his workers is going to be the hardest-worked man 
in the department; and this is quite right; he ought to be. 
His capacity to think about others, as well as for others, 
should be one of his chief qualifications. Now what has been 
said about an employee and the spirit of the day, holds equal¬ 
ly true for every leader of others, from the president down; 
and let no man think because he has reached high office that 
he is beyond the value of directing his mental attitude by 
habitual, carefully planned suggestion. But the ability of 
an executive to inspire his organization resides not alone 
in the effect of his appearance, voice, and manner. It in¬ 
cludes his capacity to make them feel his interest in their 
welfare and in their progress. 

There are two large concerns in New York which are 
directed, respectively, by two men who hold exactly opposed 
views in this connection. The president of one keeps him¬ 
self aloof from the personnel, regards the employees as neces¬ 
sary evils, considers that most of them are overpaid ingrates, 
never visits a factory unless there is new building construc¬ 
tion going on, and, if he has occasion to go to any retail de¬ 
partment, recognizes only the head. 

The president of the other appears in every manufacturing 
division at least once a month, and in every operating division 
at least once a week; he recognizes every employee on these 
visits of inspection, with a smile and nod or a word of greet¬ 
ing; he notes, and has ameliorated, any bad working condi¬ 
tions; he has reported to him every case of serious illness 
and directs that adequate care be assured; if an employee 
is getting married there will be flowers and a card from the 
president with some words of congratulation; in brief, he 
has succeeded in making the whole force think of him as 
one who cares as much for human beings as he does for 
making money. The comparative results are very interest¬ 
ing. The first company has lost enough good men to operate 


194 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


an entire organization. Its employees are its worst ad¬ 
vertisers. It has had extraordinary commercial opportunities; 
it is conservatively capitalized, yet in twenty years it has 
never earned a dividend on its common stock. The second 
company, with far less favorable conditions, has grown from 
nothing to a business of six millions a year, with net profits 
which have exceeded half a million per annum, or fifty per 
cent on the capitalization. 

In conclusion, it may be helpful to consider how best to 
meet the inevitable occurrence of worry and fear. It is idle 
to say, “Don’t worry,” unless some way can be indicated 
which will make the injunction possible of performance. 
Worry and fear are for practical purposes nearly synony¬ 
mous. To worry is to fear something and to think about it 
obsessionally—to allow it to dominate the mental activity. 
The man who admits that he is worried, and yet declares 
that he is not afraid, has uttered a paradox. As a matter of 
fact he might better recognize the associated fear as an ef¬ 
fort of nature, through stimulation of the adrenals, to pre¬ 
pare him for the most effective fight against the situation 
which he dreads. The trouble is that the situation, although 
foreseen as possible, cannot be promptly met and dealt 
with, and the prolonged waiting, with the system kept in 
partial response to fear, finally lowers the vitality of mind 
and body. The strain, certainly affecting the adrenals and 
the thyroid, is probably communicated to all the endocrine 
glands and upsets the entire food-mobilizing chemistry as 
well as the tone of the sympathetic nerve system. By the 
time the trouble actually arrives, if it ever does, the victim 
of worry is in anything but the best condition for meeting it. 

The first step in the line of correction is to make a 
thorough analysis of the cause of the worry; then set it down 
on paper, get advice if advice is needed, allot to the matter 
sufficient time to insure thorough consideration, map out a 
provisional line of action, write it down, put the paper in a 
drawer, and definitely refuse to refer to it again unless the 
crisis arrives. If it should arrive, you have ready at hand 


PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OF SUGGESTION 195 


an analysis and decision, made when you were absolutely at 
your best. Meantime, knowing that the matter has had your 
clearest and best thought, the next step is to rule it out of 
the mind as completely as any other finished item of the day’s 
work. This can be done both by positive autosuggestion and 
by instant replacement by another idea (to which is given 
the full force of imagination), the moment any sign of the 
worry appears. Once worry is recognized for what it is— 
fear—the cultural wish to be courageous is a powerful re¬ 
inforcement for both autosuggestion and replacement. In 
these circumstances, as always, there is a sure reward for 
calm, unflinching, smiling courage; and not the least of the 
reward is the inward sense of growing poise and power. 

The thoughtful student will have deduced that sug¬ 
gestion acting through the subconscious is the parent 
of habit, since it controls, automatically, as it were, all 
reflex action, and all the many things which we do 
daily without conscious thinking. On this point, Kate 
Atkinson Boehme says: 

The subconscious mind is a bundle of habits, and its 
habits are of long duration. The Subconscious contracts 
habits of disease; that is, a part of it gets to running irreg¬ 
ularly, and keeps on so moving to the disturbance of the 
general physical harmony, until something happens to set 
it right, or all the other parts adjust themselves to the 
erratic action, compromising, as it were, for the sake of 
temporary peace. 

Every action that you perform automatically, “by 
heart,” “by habit,” and without conscious employment 
of thought or will, is performed by the subconscious 
mentality. 


196 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


Paul Bousfield implies that it is suggestion, acting by 
association in the subconscious, which gives us our likes 
and dislikes: 

Or again, let us examine our own personal likes and 
dislikes. Frequently one can assign no reason whatsoever 
for these. They may exist, in fact, against what we call our 
better judgment. We may love a person in spite of certain 
faults, or dislike him in spite of his virtues. If the matter 
be examined further, however, we not infrequently find the 
reasons for our emotions towards him. Either his manner, 
dress, or tone of voice, or some other trivial feature may 
resemble some one we have liked before; or on the contrary, 
some mannerism may call to mind a similar mannerism 
which we associate, either in ourselves or in some other per¬ 
son, with unpleasant characteristics. Our unconscious mind 
has rapidly sized up all these points, appraised them, and 
presented our conscious mind with the resulting emotions 
alone. 

Any condition of man, whether it be worry, anxiety, 
failure, depression, sorrow, grief, misfortune, which 
lowers his vitality and weakens his efficiency, can, by 
means of a suggestion, be changed by the alchemy of 
thought into a positive condition which will bring about 
success, prosperity, abundance, happiness, joy, and 
peace. 

Any disease known to man can be contracted by sug¬ 
gestion—that is, mind—and any disease or condition 
which has been contracted by mind, can also be elimi¬ 
nated and erased by mind. 

Dr. A. T. Schofield remarks in “The Unconscious 
Mind” that, after the brain is restored to health by 
good nerve-tissue and healthy blood, it can be made, 
by suggestion, to exercise as healthy an influence over 


PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OP SUGGESTION 197 


the body as previously it exercised a harmful one. If 
ideal centres can produce ideal conditions, surely the 
rational cure of disease is to bring these centres into an 
ideal, healthy condition and then make them the means 
of curing the disease. 

“Mental disease requires, and can ultimately be cured 
only by, mental medicine/ ’ 

Therefore, suggestion, when properly understood and 
practiced, will put mam into perfect health and into 
proper mental attitude for success—which means the 
greatest amount of efficiency, and this, in turn, means 
greater prosperity. 

There are countless cases on record of cures made by 
means of “mental medicine,’’—suggestion. Dr. Scho¬ 
field cites the following: 

Dr- Russell Reynolds gives us a case of paralysis which 
shows how motor and sensory disturbances may be first de¬ 
veloped, and then destroyed under the influence of ideas. 

He was called to visit a young woman whose father had 
lost money, and had been paralyzed through grief. She her¬ 
self supported the whole household by giving lessons in vari¬ 
ous parts of the town. When fatigued by her long walks, she 
sometimes thought that she too might become paralyzed, and 
that then their situation would become desperate. The idea 
haunted her. Under its influence her limbs grew weak, and 
she soon lost her walking power. 

Dr. Reynolds visited her, prescribed purely mental treat¬ 
ment, and at length convinced her that she was able to walk, 
when she at once resumed the practice. 

Suggestion is a “miracle worker,” but it is as scientific 
as Euclid. It is this function of our mind which is creative, 
and the thoughts held in the subconscious mind remake the 
body and renew the spirit within a man. Whatever thought 
is predominant in our thinking, will produce a like condi- 


198 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


tion. If we think courage, we make courage; if we think 
abundance we have abundance; if we think prosperity we 
have prosperity. The subconscious is a part of the universal 
mind, is all-health, all-wisdom, all-abundance, all-peace. Many 
people are sick because they think they are. Change your 
way of thinking and you change your condition. Think beau¬ 
tiful thoughts and you will become beautiful. 

A suggestion may be called a “seed idea” which is 
planted in the rich mental soil of the subconscious. 
This suggestion or seed idea may come from an out¬ 
side source by observation, by statement, from another 
individual, a suggestion from reading, by the expres¬ 
sion -or manner of another person, or by bad or good 
news, and so forth. 

The following explanation, by Atkinson, of the origin 
of the word, “Suggestion,” helps in understanding how 
suggestion operates in the subconscious mind: 

The term, “suggestion,” has as its root the Latin word, 
suggero, which is translated as follows: sug (or sub), “un¬ 
der;” and gero, “to carry;” that is, “to carry or place under.” 

In the New Psychology, the term, “suggestion,” is used 
in the sense of an idea which is “carried under” the objective 
or conscious mind, and introduced to the subjective or sub¬ 
conscious mind. 

In campaign after campaign we meet people who 
have been made beautiful over night. The change has 
been almost miraculous, so that their friends comment 
upon their youthful, buoyant step and beautiful coun¬ 
tenance. This is all due, of course, to the law of sug¬ 
gestion—the mind thinking youth, health and beauty. 
Nearly everyone uses suggestion whether he knows it or 


PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OF SUGGESTION 199 


not, from the doctor who prescribes pills, to the under¬ 
taker who prescribes colors and coffins. 

A certain doctor who had made enough money to re¬ 
tire from the practice of medicine by the time he was 
forty, told me that medicine has killed more people 
than it has cured. I was in his home one day when his 
mother lay groaning upon a bed. This mother con¬ 
tinued her groaning and moaning for three hours. I 
did not tell the doctor what I thought of him, but I 
wasn’t thinking very complimentary expressions about 
a son—a doctor at that—who would allow his mother 
to roll in pain for three hours without giving her a pill. 

After this mother had had a good time with her 
groaning—some people enjoy “poor health”—the doc¬ 
tor winked his eye at me, signaling for me to follow 
him into his laboratory. He said, “Do you see this? It 
is flour. And do you see this? It is a capsule.” He put 
the flour into the capsule and took the capsule of flour 
to the bedside of his groaning mother and told her to 
swallow it—it would do her good. In five minutes 
that mother was up and around the house, singing like 
a lark. The doctor was wiser than I. He knew that 
his mother had to have just so much enjoyment with 
her pain before it was the psychological time to effect a 
cure. The flour capsule might have cured her an hour 
ago, but then how much fun she would have missed! 

Many people are happy in their groans and it would 
be unpsychological to relieve the pain too soon. 

This the doctor understood. 

If we need to be healed by the suggestion of flour, 
let us buy it by the barrel—it is a whole lot cheaper 


200 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


than calling in a doctor to give it to us in little capsules. 
(Besides, we will have plenty left for the rest of the 
family—if they need it.) 

It is a fact that many of us are sick because we do 
not know how to be well. A certain woman who had 
something the matter with her throat, so she thought, 
had traveled to specialist after specialist. Each one of 
the doctors had been honest with the woman. Every 
last man had told her there was nothing the matter with 
her; but she didn’t want a doctor to tell her there was 
nothing the matter with her. She wanted one to cure 
her—she herself knew that she had throat trouble. 
She wanted the doctors to tell her that. The doctors 
had all been honest with her—but she wasn’t seeking 
for honesty but for someone to tell her she was sick 
and who would take her money to make her well. It 
was a matter of psychology, pure and simple. 

After she had seen many famous specialists and had 
traveled far and wide, she finally came back home, 
where she heard of the great reputation of a new dentist 
who had come to the city. She connected dentistry 
with the throat. A dentist ought to know a bad throat 
if he saw it. She thought a dentist might know that she 
had throat trouble—inasmuch as he “monkeyed” 
around the mouth and would naturally see several 
throats in the course of his practice. So she went to 
the dentist. This dentist was a psychologist as well 
as a D. D. S. He was just as honest with the woman as 
the other specialists had been, only a little wiser. He 
looked into the woman’s throat with all the wise air 
of the great man which he was heralded to be and said: 
4 ‘Yes, Madam, I can cure you.” 


PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OF SUGGESTION 201 


This was what the woman wanted. She wanted some¬ 
one to tell her that he could make her well. The den¬ 
tist was fair enough with the woman. He did not say 
there was anything the matter with her, but he did 
say he could cure her. He assumed all the dignity 
needed to sustain his reputation. He went over to his 
instrument cabinet and fumbled over a few nickel- 
plated crowbars and tooth jacks and finally found one 
a little colder than the others. One that he could “jab” 
into her mouth and let her feel the effects of the cold 
pointed steel. 

That also was good psychology. It produced a sensa¬ 
tion in her throat. Any other throat would have felt 
that steel-jab. It aggravated the throat’s tenderness, 
and the doctor proved to her by the jab of his instru¬ 
ment that she had a tender spot in her throat. She had 
known it, of course, but she could never prove it to any 
other doctor. Now this doctor was proving it to her¬ 
self, therefore she was in a very good frame of mind to 
be healed. The doctor had met her upon her own 
ground—on the ground that she needed his attention 
and curative assistance. 

After he had probed around enough to produce an 
aggravation of the delicate throat, he put the instru¬ 
ment back, walked several times around the cabinet, 
rubbing his chin as though in a brown study, thinking 
what next he should do to prove to the woman that 
she had throat trouble and that he was able to cure 
it. Again he went back to the chair, opened her mouth 
wide, made a few psychological, encouraging, helpful, 
hopeful, well-full remarks, and once more started to 
feel around her throat. This time she was more sure 


202 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


than before that she had come to the right man. This 
time he was very profuse in propounding some tech¬ 
nical expressions; relative to her condition, until her 
consciousness was aflame with the fact that this doctor, 
above all others, knew his business—and her sore 
throat. 

After he had convinced her that he knew what he 
was about to do, he again went back to the instrument 
cabinet and this time ‘‘juggled” some bottles contain¬ 
ing colored water and a few other things, picked up 
a stick on the end of which was some cotton, and ran 
this cotton-stick into a bottle of iodine. She did not 
know it was cotton and did not know it was iodine. It 
served the purpose, however, and when with all the 
majesty of a wise specialist about to perform wonders, 
he came back to the chair, holding the “swab” stick 
behind him, asking her to close her eyes and open 
her mouth — ‘ ‘ Open the mouth wide, please ” — he 
“swabbed” this soothing iodine over the part of the 
throat the woman knew was weak and where he had 
jabbed his instrument. There was an instant soothing 
feeling and the woman felt much better. She agreed 
with the doctor that he could cure her. She gave 
fifty dollars for the swab and made an appointment to 
come back the next day. 

The docor set the day and the hour when the throat 
would be entirely healed. So she returned as per ap¬ 
pointment on the next day and got her iodine-stick 
swab—paid fifty dollars and felt much better. In fact, 
this one thing she wanted. She wanted to feel better 
by giving her money away. No other doctor had been 
willing to take her money, that is, with the understand- 


PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OP SUGGESTION 203 


ing that she would be well; so, back she came the third 
day and the fourth day, as per appointment, and got her 
unknown swab at fifty dollars per. 

The day that the dentist set for her complete healing 
came and the woman likewise came. She would have 
kept on coming for twenty years if the doctor had 
promised that at the end of that time she would be a 
well woman, but, you see, the dentist had other people 
who thought they were sick and he couldn’t devote all 
his time to “swabbing” one woman. There were other 
women to be swabbed for the dentist’s reputation to 
grow. So the appointed hour came. The last swab 
was swabbed and the swabbed throat became com¬ 
pletely well by the swabbing swab of the last swab. The 
woman was a well woman, made well by psychology 
and fifty dollars per swab. So, after chasing hither 
and yon trying to find her cure at the end of a rain¬ 
bow, she came back home and found it at the end of a 
dental swabstick. 

The suggestibility of the mind seems to exist in vary¬ 
ing degrees, but it is always present. Of this, Dr. 
Boris Sidis says: 

Suggestibility is present in what we call the normal state, 
and in order to reveal it we must only know how to tap it. 
Every one of us is more or less suggestible. 

The fact of suggestibility existing in the normal individual 
is of the highest importance in the theoretical field of knowl¬ 
edge, in psychology, sociology, ethics, history, as well as in 
practical life, in education, politics, and economics; and since 
this fact of suggestibility may be subject to doubt on account 
of its seeming paradoxicalness, it must therefore be estab¬ 
lished on a firm basis by a rigorous experimentation. 


204 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


Suggestion, commonly speaking, has two meanings. 
First, as applied to hypnotism, when a subject has 
come under the control of the operator and accepts a 
‘ ‘ suggestion, ’ ’ and acts upon the same ; second, the psy¬ 
chological law of suggestion—autosuggestion is the 
same. In psychology, both the conscious and subcon¬ 
scious minds are amenable but more strictly speaking 
for practical purposes, suggestion as used in this vol¬ 
ume has a more direct meaning of a thought, idea, or 
“suggestion” reaching the subconscious mind by way 
of the conscious, as explained in this chapter. Thus 
suggestion may be briefly defined as the subconscious 
realization of an idea. 

We quote again from Baudouin: 

Etymologically, to suggest signifies to bring in surrep¬ 
titiously, to bring in from beneath. In the wider sense, sug¬ 
gestion implies the surreptitious appearance of sentiments, 
ideas, actions, in a word, of all the modifications that occur 
in our consciousness- The process resembles that by which 
fresh air enters a room unnoticed beneath a closed door. A 
thing is suggested to us when it enters our consciousness 
without conscious effort on our part, and sometimes in de¬ 
fiance of our will. It takes its rise in the work of our un¬ 
conscious or subconscious self- 

Everybody is using suggestion. The merchant is 
using it, the banker is using it, the butcher is using 
it, the candle-stick maker is using it, the baker is using 
it and the barber is using it. 

I have a very tough face—that is, tough to shave— 
this toughness you might say is due to the fact that my 
skin is very tender and my beard wiry; besides it grows 
criss-cross, which makes rather a delicate operation 


PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OF SUGGESTION 205 


when it comes to shaving. When I go to a new city I 
sometimes have to go to several barbers before I find 
one who can shave me without drawing blood. I like 
blood—the red kind—but I would rather have the red 
blood in my veins than spreading out on my face. It 
is more healthful and, besides, better looking. In that 
case you might say you have good-looking blood. 

I igot into a barber’s chair one day where reigned su¬ 
preme one of those proverbial talkative barbers. He 
was a psychological, talkative kind of a barber. He 
psychologized, as it were, whiskers out of my tender 
face. Of course, he used a razor, but his suggestions 
augmented the slashing of the razor. He began with a 
downward stroke on my jaw and, as he pulled the razor, 
he said: “It doesn’t hurt, does it?” Now, I can tell 
the moment a barber begins shaving my face whether it 
is going to be a clean shave or a bristle-scraping fracas. 
Before the barber said anything I knew what was com¬ 
ing, but he warded me off by saying, “It doesn’t hurt, 
does it?” He made another stroke, another scrape and 
then continued his psychology: “It doesn’t hurt, does 
it?” This was continued for some little time, and with 
each push of the razor the scraping became a little more 
severe. 

I knew what would follow, but he kept my mind from 
failing by continually talking and saying, “It doesn’t 
hurt, does it?” He became more intense in the opera¬ 
tion as he had me partly vocally-etherized by psycho¬ 
logical suggestion. My mind, so to speak, was lulled to 
sleep by the soft tones of his positive suggestion. It was 
somewhat like a dream—a nightmare, you might say— 
feeling the scraping of the blade mixed with the sooth- 


206 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


ing admonition of the positive barber, that “it didn’t 
hurt.” The stroke of the razor, however, got out of 
step with the motion of his body while he said, “It 
doesn’t hurt, does it?” And, while out of step, his 
hand slipped and “ZIP”—he ripped my jaw half an 
inch. 

As the blood oozed out he laid his hand over the cut 
and said: “It doesn’t hurt, does it?” As the blood 
rushed down and made the white lather crimson, he 
continued to mix blood, lather and psychology by say¬ 
ing, “It doesn’t hurt, does it?” I didn’t have time to 
answer him—he talked too fast—I had to take his word 
for it and I suppose that was good for me. Not being 
able to contradict him that it hurt me, I suppose 
I got over the effects of it much easier. 

Yes; everybody is using psychology, and when we 
ponder over but a part of the wonders of the subjec¬ 
tive mind, our souls are rapt in silent meditation. 

Here is a story a doctor told me: (You see everybody 
is practicing suggestion, even the medical profession). 
Mrs. Bush thinks this story is rather hard on the 
women, that it is about time I should tell one on the 
men. I have plenty equally as illustrative as this one 
on the men, but there is one reason why I pick on the 
women. You see, the men would mob me if I were to 
pick on them, but the women are psychological and 
don’t care how much picking is picked at them so long 
as the picking picks emphasize the point—serve the 
purpose of illustration. 

An animal-doctor—the kind of a “Doc” who doctors 
horses, pigs and cows—is called a veterinarian or veter- 


PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OP SUGGESTION 207 


inary surgeon (very dignified, sounds much better than 
it really looks). 

A certain veterinarian was called out by a farmer to 
doctor his cow. The veterinary surgeon arrived on the 
scene, was ushered into the stable of the sick cow, 
marched around her awhile (of course saved her life), 
and started to leave the stable, when the farmer said, 
11 1 wish you would come in and see my wife, she is not 
well. I have been trying to get a physician, but she 
won’t know the difference. You look as much like a 
woman-doctor as you do a cow-doctor, and if you don’t 
tell her she will be just as happy.” 

So the veterinary surgeon was ushered to the bedside 
of the sick woman. The cow-doctor looked wise. He 
had seen physicians at the bedside of other women, so 
he knew in what way to proceed. If he had never 
seen a physician proceeding at the bedside of a sick 
woman, that would have made no difference to this par¬ 
ticular cow-doctor—he was an opportunist, you might 
say a psychologist. He went through all the ordinary 
preliminary frills of a physician, looking as wise as any 
cow-doctor-physician could be expected to look, under 
the conditions. He had the woman run out her tongue. 
He put a silver spoon on it and looked down into her 
throat. He took the woman’s pulse, ahem-ed a few 
times, cleared his throat, stroked his beard, sat in a 
“brown study” (just like a real woman-doctor). When 
he came to the end of his rope he staged a very essential 
move in preparing a patient’s mind for the curative 
prescription (which might be written in a dead lan¬ 
guage and read and compounded by a partially dead 
drug clerk). He knew it would be better swallowed 


208 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


and bring better results if he had preceded the prescrip¬ 
tion-writing by the employment of the ordinary physi¬ 
cian’s temperature-thermometer. 

But he was a horse-doctor by profession, not a wom¬ 
an-doctor; although by circumstances he proved to be 
a most efficient human-doctor. He was stumped, but 
this cow-horse-doctor couldn’t be stumped for long. He 
had too much native horse-sense for that. He was what 
you might call a cow-horse-opportunist doctor. A happy 
thought struck him. He wasn’t in the habit of carrying 
temperature-thermometers for women, but he was in 
the habit of carrying cow-thermometers. The difference 
between a woman-thermometer and a cow-thermometer 
is a difference of about a foot. You see the ordinary 
physician’s little temperature-thermometer would hard¬ 
ly fit inside a cow’s mouth, so the cow-thermometer 
is considerably longer. 

The animal-doctor had a happy thought. He had 
taken out the cow-thermometer, but on a second glance 
at the woman’s mouth, mentally measuring the length 
of the horse-thermometer by the length of the mouth, 
he saw that it would never do to try to take her temper¬ 
ature with that long animal-thermometer; but as I say, 
he was an opportunist. He wasn’t to be stumped for 
long and, as I have already said, a happy thought struck 
him. The happy thought continued to strike him, woke 
him up—there is such a thing as getting a strong- 
enough thought to wake any doctor up. He got that 
thought. If you can’t use a thermometer one way, why 
not use it another way ? The woman was not well versed 
in the method of taking the temperature of a horse 
or a pig or a cow, and she wouldn’t know the differ- 


PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OF SUGGESTION 209 


ence between it and the cow-doctor using a horse- 
thermometer on her, or whether it was the ordinary 
procedure of taking either a horse’s or a woman’s tem¬ 
perature. 

The cow-doctor therefore took this long horse-ther¬ 
mometer and instead of putting it in the woman’s 
mouth, he stuck it under her arm pit, next to her body. 

Any cow-doctor, who is wise enough to take a wom¬ 
an’s temperature by a horse-thermometer, would be 
wise enough not to tell her what he was doing. This 
doctor only looked wise and proceeded. The woman 
looked on and progressed. After he had looked as 
wise as he knew how and had cow-doctored her as 
much as a horse-doctor could be expected to animal- 
doctor a woman, he left. 

The next time he made his visit to the cow stable 
the farmer again came out to see him and told the veter¬ 
inarian he would like very much to have him go in and 
again call on his wife, but before sending the cow-doc¬ 
tor in to the bedside of his wife, the wise farmer said 
to him: “I should like to tell you, before you go in, 
what I should like to have you do: Please use that 
instrument on my wife again, for she says she never 
had anything in her life that did her so much good.” 

Everybody is using suggestion and the best of it is 
that the thing works—as well for the cow-doctor as for 
the woman. 

That the effects of suggestion are permanent is the 
view held by H. C. Sheppard, in his book, “Psychology 
Made Practical. ’ ’ Sheppard says: 

All phases of our objective mental activity which succeed 
in sinking through the floor of our awareness into our sub- 


210 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


conscious mind, psychologists classify under the generic term 
“suggestion.” A suggestion then, once subjectively planted 
or rooted, is at once on the way to becoming a permanent 
soul, mind, and body tendency, for weal or woe. This is the 
common thing that ordinarily occurs, convictions being prob¬ 
ably the most common and strongest suggestions, due to their 
“weight.” During emotional states, however, the intensity of 
the thoughts may act as a substitute for the “weightiness” of 
the suggestion, and the effects correspondingly may become 
just as permanent. It is best, with care, understanding, and 
positiveness, to take the matter in hand, and to plant just such 
suggestions, or allow to sink into the subconscious only such 
thoughts, emotions, feelings, sentiments, and convictions, as 
it is desirable to have permanently manifested in every phase 
of the person, visible and invisible. 

Except for the mere growth and functioning of this or¬ 
ganic physical body, it has not done any one of the other 
things of its own volition. It has waited patiently thousands 
of times for the next order from the doss to drop 
through its ceiling, which is your floor of awareness. Your 
settled convictions, your emotions, often your desire or 
“wish,” sinking through, have always been the only premise 
that the subconscious has had at hand to work on. Is our 
thought one of gloom? The subconscious will make it a 
permanent miasmic accompaniment to life with just as much 
skill and completeness as it would in obeying and working 
out to its logical conclusion another and more cheerful sug¬ 
gestion. Have you a fear that you will die in the poorhouse? 
Fear is the most potent and destructive emotion. Your sub¬ 
conscious mind will work for the realization of a fear with 
as much ability and enthusiasm as it would for the material¬ 
ization of the most noble desire. Have you a feeling (and 
only half aware of it) that after all you will not be able to 
improve yourself very much after having studied this book? 
If so, that is precisely what will happen. The submerged 
consciousness with all its powers is then limited to massag¬ 
ing a million cells in your brain to hold their capacity for 


PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OF SUGGESTION 211 


knowledge and the ability to apply knowledge, in statu quo. 
IT OBEYS YOU. 

The marvelous powers of the subconscious are re¬ 
ferred to so graphically by Dr. Winbigler, that we 
quote him fully: 

This is true in every sphere of life, in occupation and ex¬ 
pression, in art, music, literature, excellence in business, 
teaching, self-healing, etc. The subconscious mind governs, 
controls, and sustains the vital functions of the body—its 
chemistry, changes, structure by cell reproduction, elimina¬ 
tion, functioning, and vibration; it determines all the nutri¬ 
tive and eliminative processes; it creates and destroys. These 
processes are increased or diminished by autosuggestion and 
heterosuggestion, and in the same mind there is found the 
power to restore lost health, cure disease, and develop the 
best in life. If a suggestion is fixed, in perfect faith, in the 
subconscious mind, that mind immediately commences its 
work of changing the organism chemically, structurally, and 
functionally to produce the changes that will result in health 
and in a normal condition. If hurtful suggestions are re¬ 
ceived and followed, abnormal conditions will be produced; 
if good suggestion, normal conditions will result. 

The subconscious mind can be educated as well as the 
conscious mind. The thoughts, desires, intentions, feelings, 
and resolutions of the day go with us into the sleeping state 
and affect the real personality in a remarkable manner. The 
reactions occurring therefrom become the measure of the 
power of those things in the mind. Undesirable thoughts and 
wrong impressions ought to be eliminated from the mind 
before we fall asleep; and the best things and most desirable 
thoughts ought to be held and retraced on account of their 
beneficial effects on the life. Sleep can be encouraged by 
keeping the physical condition good, and by avoiding things 
that cause one to be restless and disturbed in mind. The 
circulation should be equalized by relaxation and the concen- 
trative demands of the mind. If the system is held in a tense 


212 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


and rigid condition, the circulation will be interfered with; 
but if the mind commands relaxation the influence will be 
felt in every organ by virtue of the circulation of the blood 
which flows easily and unimpeded to every part of the body. 
If any part of the body is cold, it can be warmed by con¬ 
centration of the mind to that part. Relaxation and concen¬ 
tration will relieve headache, congestion, colds and fevers.* 

If the mental condition is peaceful, and all undesirable 
feelings and thoughts of the day are eliminated, the sleep will 
be as sweet and restful as the sleep of a child. The subcon¬ 
scious mind will feel the influence of such a condition and it 
will bring rest, recuperation, and power into life. 

You ask how one may remove thoughts and impressions 
of the day? It can be done by thinking of the opposite kind 
of thoughts and demanding that you will have a good feeling 
for everybody. If you nurse and fondle a bitter feeling, if 
you entertain thoughts that are impure and impressions that 
are uncharitable at night, you will arise in the morning de¬ 
pressed and feeling that the world is all wrong and going 
to the bad. If, on the contrary, you cultivate a forgiving 
spirit and think charitably of deeds that may seem to have 
been done against you, and keep yourself in a good physical 
condition, the subconscious mind will make you sweet in 
disposition, and make this world look beautiful and bright to 
you- 

The subconscious mind is an excellent servant when trained 
and educated to help, but a fearful master if left to do as 
it may choose. A quiet, serene faith in God and a belief 
in a Providence that knows and does what is best with as 
assurance that your life is in that plan and you can co¬ 
operate in bringing to pass that which is best for yourself 
and others, will put the mind into a restful, happy frame that 
will make sleep blessed. 


*For how to charge the subconscious mind while asleep 
so that it will do anything you want it to do, see Practical 
Psychology and Sex Life, by Dr. Bush. 



PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OP SUGGESTION 213 


Consciousness and subconsciousness are one in essential 
nature, except the latter lies deeper and receives the im¬ 
pressions from the former and utilizes them for the life- 
Hence, when consciousness returns after sleep, it brings with 
it suggestions that have passed down into subconsciousness. 
If worry, pain, malice, envy, and ill-will were in the mind 
when you went to sleep, they will be in the conscious mind 
when you awake, and on the other hand they will have pro¬ 
duced an effect that will be adverse to your best feelings 
and physical condition. If you went to sleep with a good 
feeling for everybody, trusting in God and His providence, 
forgiving any that have injured you, and desiring to help all 
you know and meet in the morning when you awake, you will 
feel happy, and physically, you will feel rested. 

Before arising in the morning, relax all your muscles and 
concentrate your mind on what you will do during the day, 
and train yourself for getting the best out of your life and 
giving the best that is in you, and see what a wonderful 
effect it will have on your whole nature. 

The subconscious mind has solved problems, invented 
some great things, discovered principles of wide application 
when the conscious mind was at rest. Lay some duty— 
specifically stated—on the subconscious mind and see how 
faithfully it will carry it out. Whenever you feel depressed, 
or have the “blues” in the morning, you may know that you 
have not treated the subconscious mind as you ought, and 
that you have violated some laws that are visiting their 
penalties upon you. The conscious mind ought to be serene 
for one or two hours in the morning so that the subconscious 
mind could pass up what is best and noblest and the results 
of the new life and thoughts which have entered and grown 
in it during the sleeping hours. 

Insomnia* can be cured by the subconscious mind by 
centering the thought on the brain and getting a good pic¬ 
ture of it, and mentally seeing the blood slowly and regularly 

*To cure insomnia, see Practical Psychology and Sex Life, 
bv Dr. Bush. 



214 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


going down and the cells resting. A quiet restful feeling will 
follow, and the whole body will feel the result. Then men¬ 
tally seeing the heart and circulation slowing down and the 
whole weight resting heavily on the bed, will soon send one 
to sleep, and with the utilization of what we have already said 
will bring strength, health, happiness, and good feeling for 
the following day. 

That one’s life can be completely revolutionized by 
understanding and training the subconscious is pointed 
out by Dr. Winbigler in the following: 

Suggestions lodged in the mind can effect a complete 
change, morally and physically. If mankind would become 
in spirit “as a little child,” trusting in God implicitly, the 
greatest power would be utilized in the establishment of 
health and equilibrium, and the results would be untold in 
comfort, sanity, and blessing. For instance, here is one who 
is suffering from worry, fear, and the vexations of life. How 
can he get rid of these things and relieve this suffering? Let 
him go to a quiet room or place, twice a day, lie down and 
relax every muscle, assume complete indifference to those 
things which worry him and the functions of the body, and 
quietly accept what God, through this law of demand and 
supply, can give. In a few days he will find a great change 
in his feelings, and the sufferings will pass away and life 
will look bright and promising. Infinite wisdom has estab¬ 
lished that law; and its utilization by those who are worried 
and fearful will secure amazing results in a short time. 

The reader may ask how this is secured. The explanation 
is not far to seek. The physical system has been on a severe 
strain, owing to depressing effects of worry and fear, and 
has come almost to the point of breaking. Its nervous equilib¬ 
rium has been greatly disturbed and the depressed condition 
has affected the heart action, the digestion, and the vital 
functions. When the person becomes quiescent, and relaxes 
the muscles by an act of the will and persistent passivity, the 
nerves have a chance to regain their normal, healthful ac- 


PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OF SUGGESTION 215 


tion, all the functions of the body commence to work naturally, 
the health is restored, and the unreasonableness of fretting, 
fearing, and worrying becomes so apparent that the afflicted 
one sees the foolishness of that course of life and gives it up. 
The real reason for the change is found in the possibility of 
recovery by using the laws that God has placed within our 
reach, and thus securing the coveted health and power for 
all that we want and ought to do. The subliminal life is the 
connecting link between man and God, and by obeying His 
laws, one’s life is put in contact with infinite resources and 
all that God is able and willing to give. Here is the secret 
of all the cures of disease, and the foundation for the pos¬ 
sibility of a joyful existence, happiness and eternal life. Sug¬ 
gestion is the method of securing what God gives, and the mind 
is the agent through which these gifts are received. This is 
not a matter of theory, hut a fact. If any one who is sick or 
who desires to be kept well will have stated periods of re¬ 
laxation, open-mindedness, and faith, he can prove the bene¬ 
ficial and unvarying result of this method. 

If a man’s mind has been exiled to a “Devil’s Island” 
of fear it may take some time for scientific psychology 
to get hold of him. I, therefore, marshal some medical 
authority to endorse our statement. 

Dr. James J. Walsh, dean of the medical school of 
the Fordham University and for fifteen years editor of 
a medical journal, says that many students feel the 
symptoms of diseases which they study and become vic¬ 
tims of those diseases. This is experienced every year, 
although the students are forewarned that they will 
come down with the diseases they are studying. Despite 
this forewarning, student after student will “slink” 
around, under cover of darkness, to see some doctor- 
professor to tell him that they feel the symptoms of the 
diseases. 


216 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


Dr. Hudson, referring to the same fact, says: 

My object is to show how easily and powerfully sug¬ 
gestions may operate to bring about pathological conditions in 
people of far more than average intelligence. If medical stu¬ 
dents can be so wrought upon by the suggestions embraced 
in their general studies of pathology, and their subsequent 
experiences at the bedside, what may we not expect of that 
large and constantly augmenting class whose knowledge of 
pathology is derived solely from the patent medicine adver¬ 
tisements in the daily papers, as well as other numerous un¬ 
friendly suggestions? 

This, of course, is a matter of suggestion only. A 
person who is a good subject to suggestion may be told 
that at a certain time a blister will arise on the back 
of his hand; then, to augment the suggestion, blindfold 
the subject; take nothing more caustic than a postage 
stamp, wet this, put it on the spot on the back of the 
hand where the blister is to rise and then—adding to 
the suggestion, you see—let a bandage be tied around 
this hand and postage stamp. At the appointed time, 
remove the bandage and stamp and lo! the blister has 
come. 

“It follows,” says a savant, “that so long as man 
rests in ignorance of the law of suggestion, the higher 
the grade of his civilization, the more will he suffer 
from suggestions adverse to his health.” 

Dr. Walsh also suggests that you can cause an arm to 
bleed in a certain spot, on some people, by the power of 
suggestion. 


PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OP SUGGESTION 217 


Kate Atkinson Boehme says: 

Living words are words of health, words of success, words 
of good cheer, and the subconscious mind responds to them by 
setting up better circulation, steadier heartbeats, better muscu¬ 
lar and nerve action, better sight, better hearing and better 
digestion. 

On the other hand, dead words, such as, I am sick, miser¬ 
able,, poor, unfortunate, and hopeless, all have a disastrous 
effect upon the subconscious mind, lowering the tone of the 
whole system and producing the exact opposite of the effect 
of the live words. 

If a person be affected with any mental worries or 
negations, so that he becomes disturbed, discouraged, 
down-hearted or depressed, he is losing the greater 
chance of winning in life’s battle. Nothing can so com¬ 
pletely paralyze the creative power of the mind and 
body, as the dark, gloomy, discouraged mental attitude. 
The human mind cannot accomplish great work unless 
the banner of hope goes in advance. Put the key of 
hope into the lock of discouragement and you are saved. 
Lose the key of hope and you lose the greatest chances 
of life and, oftentimes, life itself. 


218 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


CHAPTER XI 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


What It Is—What It Can Do—How to Overcome Fear 

The application of the laws of psychology will: 

Teach you how to think right. 

Eliminate all discordant and negative thoughts. 

Produce harmony, happiness, and peace. 

Stop worry and overcome nervousness. 

Eliminate poverty and bring prosperity. 

Produce plenty and opulence. 

Slay the dragon “Fear” and oust thoughts of defeat. 

Make man have complete control of his emotional 
nature—not stifling emotion, but “harnessing” emo¬ 
tional power for the betterment of the possessor. 

Overcome timidity, self-consciousness, and self-pity. 

Produce health and long life. 

Give you beauty, charm, and personality. 

Make you courageous, strong, and confident. 

Stimulate undeveloped brain cells and arouse the 
genius within you. 

Teach you how to surmount all obstacles and diffi¬ 
culties and hindrances so that yours will be a maximum 
success. 

Show how to overcome life’s: handicaps, environ¬ 
ment, and hereditary tendencies. 

Teach you how to avoid mistakes, blunders, and 
errors. 




APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


219 


Point out to you the virtue of forgetting the past and 
how to overcome when the past has been heavily 
laden with wrong thinking and physical prodigality. 

Arouse ambition and stimulate a desire to fulfill 
your great mission in life. 

Teach you how to find your talent, tap the reservoirs 
of power within you and make yourself a king. 

If you are in the wrong kind of work, “Applied 
Psychology” will show you the way out. If you are a 
misfit, it shows you that you no longer have to remain 

a misfit. 

“Applied Psychology” teaches: 

The proper relationship of labor to capital; of the 
employee to the employer. 

How economic conditions may be solved and the 
world-brotherhood ushered in. 

The right relationship between man and man and 
nation and nation. 

The elimination of crime, poverty, and disease. 

Right understanding of juvenile government, crim¬ 
inal law, and sociology. 

The solution of all political and civic entanglements. 

How to have peace of mind and be content. 

How to have a happy home and harmonious con¬ 
ditions. 

How to prevent forms of insanity and abnormalities. 

How to cure insomnia. 

How to have friends and be a friend. 

How to reclaim all you have lost, with added interest. 

How to smile and look up. 


220 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


How to overcome despondency, depression, and mis¬ 
fortune. 

How to' be cheerful, happy, and hopeful. 

How to conduct your business and domestic affairs in 
poise and equilibrium. 

How to be successful. 

How to be prosperous. 

How to achieve. 

AND HOW TO WIN. 

That “as a man thinketh in his heart so is he,” is 
scientifically, physiologically, and psychologically true. 

In the realm of scientific thinking we have not yet 
come to the mountain-top where we can gaze over into 
the promised land. 

“Primitive people have great faith in the curative 
power of certain plants and herbs, because they be¬ 
lieve that the Creator has put into them remedies for 
every physical ill. The most highly civilized people 
are beginning to realize that man has within himself 
the great panacea for all his ills; that the antidotes 
for the worst poisons: the poisons of evil thoughts, 
passions and emotions, exist in the form of essences of 
love, charity, and good-will, which the Creator put in 
the soul of man from the beginning. He has implanted 
in every human being that which is stronger than any 
evil or vicious thought. We have the power, if we will 
only exercise it, to direct and control our thoughts, to 
make them what we will. We can send out and draw 
to ourselves whatever manner of thought we desire.” 

There is no freedom but the freedom of the mind. 
One may be a islave in Siberia’s snows—yet, if the spirit 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


221 


be free, it secures a partnership with God and to him 
it is paradise. Neither cold nor heat, neither poverty 
nor hunger, neither sorrow nor sickness can take away 
from him the freedom of the spirit. Indeed it is true 
that to be spiritually minded is life and peace. 

The human system is a wonderful thing. I think I 
will raise my hand, and lo! the hand goes up and no 
physician on earth can explain how I do lit. No one 
can tell how it is that my hand moves in consequence 
of my thought. Or, without my thinking about my 
hand, it goes up. It obeys some dictator. This is a 
mystery, and the brain is very hungry for its solution, 
seeking in every direction for further information. 

Some one once asked a chief of the Texas Rangers 
to explain the remarkable exploits of his men in arrest¬ 
ing desperate criminals single-handed. His reply was: 
“A man that knows he is in the wrong can’t stand up 
against a man that knows he is in the right—and keeps 
on coming.” 

That is one of the chief merits of all state police, 
whether they be Texas Rangers, Northwest mounted 
police or the state constabulary of Pennsylvania. They 
are trained to “keep on coming.” 

One day While seated in a hotel in Georgia, I saw 
a sheriff come in who had been out rounding up some 
“moonshiners.” His round-up was successful. He had 
safely lodged the “moonshiners” within the calaboose 
of the little Georgia town. Having read of the ex¬ 
ploits, so full of danger and daring, of the great Texas 
Ranger, Captain McDonald, I asked the sheriff if he 
needed any guns when he went out on such a man- 


222 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


hunting expedition, to which he replied: “No, for 
when we are following a man who has broken the law, 
the ordinary criminal has enough troubles for fear of 
being caught; so much fear ‘to tote’ that he hasn’t 
much strength for defence.” 

If a man is to carry on his life’s battles and to 
achieve the very highest that is within him, he cannot 
“tote” fear, anxiety, nervousness, worry, trouble, sor¬ 
row, grief, disappointment, misfortune or any discord¬ 
ant or negative thoughts. These must be eliminated. 
The law of psychology will teach us how to eliminate 
this discordant thinking. 

Everybody ought to learn, from early childhood, 
the importance of controlling their thinking. Thoughts 
may be, and often are, as deadly as the worst engine of 
destruction ever invented. 

During the war, a Zeppelin went sailing over Paris, 
dropping bombs as it passed, and not one was killed or 
seriously wounded by the exploding bombs. One 
woman, however, though untouched, fell dead. 

She had been killed, not by a bomb but by a thought 
—a momentary devastating thought of fear conjured 
up in her own mind. 

There was a train wreck in Illinois. A number of 
passengers were badly injured but many escaped with¬ 
out physical harm of any sort. Yet, among the latter, 
there were at least a dozen who, afterwards, developed 
paralysis of arms or legs. 

These persons, I repeat, had not received the least 
real bodily harm. The whole trouble with them was 
that they had thought they must be severely injured 
and, by thus thinking, they had iso deranged their nerv- 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


223 


ous system as to cause the development of paralytic 
symptoms. 

Bearing cases like these in mind—and they are 
occurring every day—it as easy to understand and 
appreciate the force of this emphatic statement by a 
leading American physiologist, Professor Dearborn, of 
Tufts College: 

“The aspects of consciousness are the realest of 
real tj^ings. For every man crushed by a falling rock 
or an overturning car, dozens are crushed by mental 
objects, such as volitions and feelings.” 

Again and again it has been conclusively proved that 
thoughts of fear, anxiety and despair have caused a 
fatal outcome in cases of accident and illness where 
recovery would otherwise have been assured. 

Moreover, the world is and always has been full of 
physical wrecks whose invalidism has been directly and 
solely due to the destroying thoughts on which they 
have allowed their minds to dwell. 

Truly, thoughts are “the realest of all real things / 1 
and the whole trend of a man’s life, for good or evil, 
depends on the kind of thinking in which he indulges. 

“As a man thinketh, so is he,” is no mere pictur¬ 
esque literary phrase. It accords with and is supported 
by the facts of scientific research and everyday obser¬ 
vation. 

“Control your thoughts, and the secret of health, 
happiness and success is in your grasp.”—H. Adding¬ 
ton Bruce. 

Psychology will teach you how to control your 
thoughts. 


224 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


When yon come into an understanding of the laws 
of Practical Psychology, yon will no longer be a vic¬ 
tim of fear or timidity. Yon will understand the power 
within you to make you brave and courageous. No 
longer will you be timid or filled with self-pity. 

If your ambition is smouldering now, “Applied Psy¬ 
chology’’ will teach you that “It is not dead but 
sleepeth.” Man is born with a strong will and high 
ambition; but ambition is very often strangled and 
choked because of one streak of so-called misfortune 
after another, of reverses following upon the heels of re¬ 
verses, fear stalking in the ishadow of failure, harsh 
criticism cutting the heart like a two-edged sword, 
or lack of appreciation and reward for efforts made. 

Though you think that the ambitions which once fired 
your soul, are dead, they are not dead but merely dor¬ 
mant. Though a thousand fears assail you, psychology 
will teach you to have the faith and speak the word: then 
fear will be pushed out of the back door and hope enter 
the front gate. 

“One day at the end of an address to a great com¬ 
pany of soldiers in France,, a young man wlaited for a 
conference with me,” says Hillis. “He said, in brief, 
that for months he had been the victim of the fear of 
death. He had suffered every form of wound through 
his imagination. He had been blind, he had lost both 
his legs by cannon balls, he had had his arms shot 
away, he had been paralyzed—not one form of mutila¬ 
tion but, imaginatively, he had suffered. Night after 
night he would awaken after a brief nap, drenched with 
perspiration. 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


225 


“At first it was impossible to believe him. His face 
shone, his 'hands were steady, his eyes bright. And 
then he told his story: 

“ ‘Those words of yours, sir, about 'each soldier boy 
being dear to God, that we cannot live too long since 
God is beside us and we cannot die too soon since He 
goes into the trench with us, and that, if we fall here 
and our work is interrupted, we have another chance 
there—I have lost all fear. I can go over the top 
tomorrow and go with a light heart. You will never 
know what it is to be redeemed fully of the fear of 
death as your message of God’s care for us has re¬ 
deemed me.’ ” 

In the larger sense we are all in danger of passing 
under the influence of fear. Not one, of us but has 
some fault, some memory, that we would fain change. 
But the past should never be a trap or fetter for your 
feet. Remember that your life is not in the yesterday 
but in the tomorrow. Always there is One who is on 
your side. His laws are not man-traps for your de¬ 
struction. He is no avenging executioner out upon a 
deadly pursuit. He is wiser than any teacher, gentler 
than any mother, kinder than any physician, braver 
than any leader. For He is the Great Lover, the Divine 
Emancipator, and all that there is in the little, in this 
strange epic of human life that we have studied to¬ 
gether, is to be found in the large, in this wonderful 
drama of God’s love and of man’s soul. 

Philosophers have told us that the decisive battles 
of the world are fought in the mind. ’Tis even so! 

Of greatest interest, in judging the character of Foch 
today by his words of years ago, is the insistence which 


226 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


he always placed upon the personality of thei com¬ 
mander—his will, hi® belief in himself, as well as his 
knowledge and competence. “A battle lost is a battle 
which you think you cannot gain,” he would approv¬ 
ingly quote, year after year, to his classes. Two other 
favorite quotations of Foch are on the lips of his old 
pupils in these days: “For there’s nothing either 
good or bad but thinking makes it so,” from Hamlet, 
and “Moral force is the mistress of armies,” attributed 
to the French colonial general, Bugeaud. But Foch 
never relied upon inspiration or will-power to make up 
for blunders or stupidity arising from lack of knowl¬ 
edge of the art of war. Each year, at the end of his 
lectures, he would say to his pupils, to make them re¬ 
member “the unchanging and unchangeable character 
of fundamental principles,” . . . “No invention, no 
new machine, no increase in the number of your effec¬ 
tives, can change the inexorable laws of war. Great 
commanders may sometimes appear to achieve success 
by breaking the rule®, but examine closely and you 
will find that the career of each of them is a crowning 
vindication of what I have told you.” 

The greatest souls have been fired to their highest 
achievement by failures of the past; but a man who 
understands psychology recognizes no failure, except 
it be a$ a stepping stone to something higher. It 
teaches man to recognize only the true and the success¬ 
ful. When our eyes are steadily focused toward the 
goal of our ambition, ravines of mistakes, rivers of mis¬ 
fortune, hurricanes of troubles, and cyclones of reverses 
are but the materials out of which the man who under¬ 
stands psychology carves his greatest success. 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


227 


f i: 

Great men are never deterred because of failure. If 
we do not recognize our greatness, psychology teaches 
us how to win. Frederick the Great ran away from 
his first battle, so did Charles the Twelfth, filled with 
fear, discouragement and failure; but they overcame 
it, went back to the fray, marshalled all of the forces 
within them (the! same as you can do), and became 
Immortals. 

The average man (is as capable of becoming an im¬ 
mortal as Frederick the Great or Charles the Twelfth; 
it is only a matter of having that faith and under¬ 
standing of the power within, which teaches us that 
nothing is impossible to the man who “believes he can.” 

You must face life’s battles tomorrow with the cour¬ 
age of one who knows that victory is assured and that, 
should you meet a defeat or two, it is only a matter of 
delaying your ultimate triumph. Make no plans for 
any kind of a retreat, but think only of your ultimate 
goal and achievement. 

General Grant would never allow defeat to figure 
in his daily diary. It had been a mighty severe day, and 
Sherman went to General Grant’s tent that night with 
the intention of recommending that they retreat and 
give the victory to the enemy; but, when Sherman came 
into the presence of Ulysses S. Grant, the great com¬ 
mander was “chawing” the end of a cigar with such 
determination that Sherman could not muster up 
enough pepper to suggest “retreat”, and so he said, 
“Well, General, we have had a pretty hard day of it 
today.” “Yes,” replied Grant, “we have had; but, 
damn it, we’ll lick ’em tomorrow!” And they did. 


228 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


When you are thinking of retreat, the better thought 
would be “victory;” but sometimes we have to back 
up, tack, and plow around. Your retreat can never 
be, by the law of psychology, a permanent defeat. It is 
only mustering your forces on another battlefield of 
life’s experience, getting ready to marshal your talents 
and abilities to an ultimate triumphant achievement. 

If failure has dimmed your life’s perspective, Ap¬ 
plied Psychology will teach you that anything which 
has come into your life can be erased by the power of 
the mind; and if your perspective has been blackened, 
the power of the mind can polish it until it will shine 
with all the brilliancy of a highly polished seventy-two 
inch telescope. 

The “Ladies’ Home Journal” and the “Saturday 
Evening Post” are the outgrowth of failure. Mr. Cur¬ 
tis, of this great publishing company, tried once and 
failed; but Curtiisi was too big for failure. What was 
a failure or two to a man who could build the best 
well-known periodical in the world? Why, failure was 
only a stepping stone; it was only getting his eye teeth 
cut; it was only learning a bigger game. Failure, to 
Mr. Curtis, was what Curtis needed; and the world 
needed Curtis to give us the “Ladies Home Journal” 
and the “Saturday Evening Post,” not to mention the 
“Country Gentleman.” 

Patrick Henry has given us a speech that will be 
memorized by all American schoolboy® to the end of 
time. Yet Patrick Henry was a no-account lawyer, an 
as-little-account farmer, a no-more-account business 
man, and was considered nothing more than a ne’er-do- 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


229 


well. He had failed in many things, but all of these 
failures only stirred the emotion slumbering within the 
breast of the famous colonist; so that, when the great 
moment came, although confronted with the record of 
past discouragement and failure, he was able to reach 
in his immortal “Give me liberty or give me death!” 
one of the loftiest peaks that any orator’s soul ever 
scaled. 

Many people have the idea that the brain is not sus¬ 
ceptible of any very great change, that its limits are 
fixed by the destiny of heredity, and that about all we 
can do is to give it a little polish and culture. 

There are plenty of examples, however, of individu¬ 
als who have completely revolutionized portions of 
their brains and have made strong faculties of those 
which were weak at birth or deficient from lack of 
exercise. There are many instances where certain 
mental faculties were almost entirely lacking and yet 
have been built up so that they have powerfully but¬ 
tressed and stimulated the whole character. 

Take courage, for instance: Many good and very 
successful people were once so completely devoid of 
this quality that the lack threatened to wreck their 
Whole future. But with the help of intelligent training 
by parents and teachers, they have developed it until 
it became strong. 

This has been done by the cultivation of self-con¬ 
fidence, by constantly holding the suggestion of cour¬ 
age before the young mind, by the contemplation of 
brave and heroic deeds, the reading of the life stories 
and works of great heroes, by the suggestion that fear 


230 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


is a negative quality—the mere absence of the natural 
quality of courage which is every man’s birthright— 
and by the constant effort to perform courageous deeds. 

The brain is very adaptable. Each vocation makes 
a different call upon it and develops faculties and 
qualities peculiar to itself, so that as the various pro¬ 
fessions, trades and specialties multiply, the brain takes 
on new adaptive qualities, thus giving greater variety 
and strength to civilization as a mass. 

If you apply the laws of psychology, success will 
come, and you can’t stop it, although you build a water¬ 
tight compartment around yourself. The application of 
natural laws brings about a natural result; and, when 
once these laws are tapped, harnessed, understood and 
operated, man himself will not be able to prevent it. 
No combination of circumstances can prevent the opera¬ 
tor of these natural laws from bringing into his life 
the things which he desires. 

Applied Psychology will teach you how to be suc¬ 
cessful, even though poverty shake its skeleton fingers 
at your despondent form and the winds of life seem 
to have blasted all your hopes. 

For your success, you must understand that all of 
your power is within; that this is a God-given power; 
that it is God Himself. When we understand this law 
and this secret of strength and power, we become har¬ 
nessed to the great universal dynamo and right think¬ 
ing will snatch victory from defeat. 

It is not enough to know that this power is within 
you, but you must have the faith and the courage to 
operate this law. You must believe that you can, and 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


231 


by a systematic study of psychology, you will have a 
working knowledge of the practical laws that will un¬ 
fold to you the power within. 

I know a man who has the biggest drug store in his 
city and this is a city of first magnitude in the United 
States. When he was married he had no job and had 
just thirteen cents in his pocket. You will have to 
confess that the girl who could marry a jobless man, 
on an “unlucky’’ thirteen cents, on Friday the 13th, 
either had a lot of pluck or was a psychologist. Time 
demonstrated that she was the latter; there is no more 
ill luck on the 13th than on the 1st, unless your think¬ 
ing makes it so. Their thinking turned thirteen cents 
into a fortune. When the young fellow was married, 
a man who had a dinky drug store and who was 
thoroughly disgusted with it, offered to sell it to the 
jobless “thirteen-cent” man; but a man with thirteen 
cents couldn't buy very much—especially in the drug 
line, judging from the way prescriptions are sometimes 
charged—so the young married man told the druggist 
he wasn’t in a position to buy a drug store. However, 
if a man has character and faith and courage, he 
doesn’t have to be in a financial position to go into 
business. There will be plenty of ways for a man to 
get money if he has the character and the grit and 
gumption, so this druggist told the young fellow that 
he could have the store and pay for it as he made the 
money. The 11 thirteen-cent” jobless groom and the 
“thirteen-cent” faith-bride bought the drug store on 
nothing. 

As time passed, the young man, with his energy and 


232 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


foresight and integrity, was able not only to make ends 
meet, but to pay off the indebtedness of the store. 
However, he didn’t do it in that drug store—there he 
just made expenses. But a man who has the grit and 
a woman who has the psychology to marry on thirteen 
cents are not going to let a little thing like that deter 
them from their future ambition. 

When this young man bought that non-paying drug 
store he said, “Some day I’ll have the biggest drug 
store in the city;” and if he didn’t make money there, 
at least he was still hanging on to his goal. So, after 
four or five years of just meeting expenses, with the 
original deal still hanging over his head, he moved to 
another location. Here he made a little money. After 
a number of years of making a little money, he sold 
that store about the same time that his relatives died. 
Whether this had any connection with the transaction 
or not, I do not know; but when his relatives died he 
left the city and then, later, he came back again. 

What connection his dead relatives had with his 
coming back, I do not know, but nevertheless he came 
back, started another drug store and lost money. But 
a man. who had his eye set on the biggest drug store in 
the city couldn’t stop just because he lost a little 
money in his new store, so he started another drug 
store in another location where he lost some more 
money. (Lovely! For a man now reaching middle 
life, with the ambition of having the biggest drug store 
in the city, and seeing what money he had saved dwind¬ 
ling away!) But no one who is a good psychologist 
cares about a little dwindling of money. A psychologist 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


233 


is tickled to death that he has money to dwindle—for 
there are lots of people who haven’t reached the place 
where they can enjoy that sensation—and so he buckled 
up his spirit, smiled a little more, turned the crank of 
psychology, and bought another store. In this new 
store his money continued to dwindle. 

He was in the middle of a block. The corner store 
became empty, and he saw the handwriting on the 
wall that some other druggist would come to that 
corner store and would get not only the little business 
he had but everything else in the neighborhood, and 
thereby his dwindling money might all dwindle out. 

It takes some psychology and some faith, when you 
are going down hill and losing what money you have 
saved, to rent a second store in the same block, but this 
man had started out with the ambition to have the 
biggest drug store in his city. His experience told 
him that this empty store on the corner was a good 
drug-store site, and that if he didn’t get it, somebody 
else would, and when somebody else got it, his business 
would be a “goner.” So, taking another risk, he rented 
the second building. Now he had two drug stores on 
his hands in which his money could dwindle, if the 
dwindling was going to continue. It did—for awhile— 
and then the tide turned. About the time that he had 
lost all the money which he had made, it turned; the 
tide began to sweep him up on the beach of prosperity, 
and by the time he was fifty-five years of age, the tide 
had so swept him upon this prosperity beach that he 
had made back all the money which he had lost and 
he did own the biggest drug store in the city! 


234 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


When you think you are going to drown, it is a 
mighty good time to paddle; and if you lose one oar, 
it is a mighty good time to paddle with the one that 
is left; and if you break the one remaining oar, it is 
another mighty good time to isplash around with the 
piece that is left; and when that piece is broken up 
into splinters, it is a mighty good time to stick to a 
splinter, for thousands of men, who are successful and 
prosperous and leaders today, saved themselves with 
the last little splinter that misfortune and failure had 
left in their hands. 

Mind is everything. Psychology teaches us the 
proper control of the mind which, in turn, brings to us 
everything we desire. 

The one best way to find your work, be sure of it—for 
a genius is asleep in you as well as in all the rest of the 
sons of man—is by the application of Psychology. 

Applied Psychology will teach you how to have a 
peaceful and happy home. There can be no such 
thing as an inharmonious home unless we allow it to 
be. There is no such thing as domestic intranquillity 
unless we allow it to be. 

What makes a home? Bricks and mortar, furniture 
and fine trimmings? Nay! Nay! A home is not cold 
cement, stone, pine and fir, lath and plaster, for a 
palace can be a den of human reptiles and crocodiles. 
A home is not the material but the spirit within, and 
the most humble cottage can be a palace of love, and, 
when love is cherished and nurtured, we own a para¬ 
dise. Man’s mind—psychology—makes the paradise, 
not the architect nor the structure. 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


235 


We may be in a theater, crowded to the doors, every¬ 
thing peaceful and serene, the actors holding us spell¬ 
bound; and let someone run in hastily and shout 
“fire,” and a great commotion, hubbub and turmoil 
will ensue; people will scramble over their neighbors 
in an effort to reach the doorway and escape; ladies 
may faint and men suffocate; and yet there may be no 
fire at all. The crowd becomes panic-stricken by the 
cry of ‘ ‘ fire. ’ ’ What causes the panic ? The fire doesn’t 
do it for there is no fire. Mind does it because of the 
suggestion to the theater-goers that there is a fire. It 
is the mind which determines the state of our bodies, 
and what it produces in our bodies it also produces in 
our mental storehouses. 

Dr. William A. White, of St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, 
Washington, D. C., says: “It is high time to set up 
repair shops for minds that are out of order. ’’ 

Dr. White is chief mental expert for the Federal 
Government and the superintendent of that great 
soldiers’ and sailors’ hospital just outside of Wash¬ 
ington, which specializes on cases of sick minds. He 
is -one of the leaders in the national committee for men¬ 
tal hygiene which sets the pace in the study of this 
subject, and his institution trains more specialists 
along this line—psychiatrists, they are called—than any 
other. He is the man in the nation about whom ad¬ 
vanced thought on problems of the mind revolves. 

In an interview with William DuPuy, Dr. White 
made the following statement: 

“If your typewriter or your automobile or your sew- 


236 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


ing machine gets something the matter with it, you 
know right where to go to get it fixed up. 

“If you get the toothache, or corns, or poison ivy, 
you have but to go around the corner, peel a few lay¬ 
ers off your roll and relief is yours. 

“But if that master mechanism of the universe, the 
human mind, gets out of order, there is no repair shop. 
It must limp along with a flat wheel or a cylinder that 
does not fire until it becomes such an obstruction to 
traffic that it is hurried to the scrap heap. 

“Civilization has fallen into another of the pitfalls 
of the obvious. It is leaving that thing which is near¬ 
est it, of the most importance to it—the engine that 
drives it—out in the wet, exposed to the elements. 
The human mind, which has built and preserved the 
complicated structure that is peculiar to man, has 
given no practical thought to itself. 

“It is high time that we set up in every city a re¬ 
pair shop for minds that are out of order. It is high 
time that every municipal hospital had psychopathic 
wards, mental hygiene clinics, which would put the 
chains on minds that are skidding and bring them back 
to steady go ing.’ ’ 

It is easy to fan poisonous thoughts, already kind¬ 
ling, into flame; but Psychology teaches us how to put 
out the fire by getting rid of discordant thinking. 

Indigestion, general stomach trouble, sluggish liver, 
irregular functioning of any of the organs of the body 
may produce a sluggish vitality which will change the 
features of the person within a short ispace of time. 
The stomach trouble, the indigestion, the sluggish liver 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


237 


or the irregular functioning of the organs are probably 
due to wrong thinking. Grief, stress, anxiety, fear, 
worry, nervousness, all work their ravages upon the 
person entertaining such mental conditions, and these 
ravages are expressed in all kinds of inharmonious 
functioning of physical organs. Remove the nervous¬ 
ness, the worry, the stress, the anxiety, the fear, and 
the organs will become normal. So our health is a 
matter of mind. 

Mrs. Bush had physical ailments peculiar to her 
sex. She was in such agonizing pain that if you were 
to come within eighteen inches of her bed she would 
scream in her agony for fear you might touch the bed. 
She was unable to stand. The doctors said it was 
a matter of two or three operations and then she 
might not have her health. Within six weeks, by men¬ 
tal treatment, she was a well woman. The old difficulty 
never comes back. 

We are what we are because of what we think, and 
the great secret of life is to know how to think right. 
By right thinking, all of our inharmonious conditions 
become changed; by right thinking, we become in¬ 
heritors of the abundance of life. 

Mind does it. There is hardly a physical disability, 
with perhaps the exception of those brought on by 
accidents or contagion, but what is produced by mind. 
Get a kink in the mind and all kinds of disturbances 
in the physical body and mental realm ensue. It is a 
matter of understanding the kink; of charging the sub¬ 
conscious mind with a stronger counter-thought. 

There are some surgeons, world famous, who had 
given up a cripple. She used crutches and had not 


238 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


been free from pain for six years. These world famous 
surgeons were unable to bring relief and had sent her 
back home, hopeless. Within twenty minutes after I 
had seen this woman, the pain left, and that day she 
threw down her crutches and walked. A matter of 
mind! 

A certain patient of mine had not slept well for 
years. She had a creeping sensation all over her body 
which became localized more especially in her legs and 
a spot on her head. This was a “creeping feeling,” not 
itching or a pain, but just as though something were 
creeping inside. She said she knew she was going to 
become insane. 

There is always a kink in the mind which produces 
our physical ailments, with the exception, perhaps, as; 
I have said, of cases of accidents and contagion; and 
in the realm of contagion I believe'it is more mind 
contagion than physical contagion; that is, I believe 
we talk so much about the flu, appendicitis, or infantile 
paralysis, that our consciousness becomes obsessed with 
these respective suggestions until the contagion does 
locate in the bodies of the victims. 

This woman referred to above had hated her sister. 
She said that, at the last scene they had, she could 
have killed her sister, and she believed that if she had 
had anything in her hand, she would have attempted it. 
With one treatment (and by treatment I mean giving a 
counter-suggestion to that hate and the murderous 
thought) the woman became well. She, of course, had 
first to erase from her mind the thought of hatred 
which had produced the physical difficulty. Just a 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


239 


kink in her mind! Her emotion had reached the state 
of hatred and murderous thoughts, and this in turn, 
had poisoned her system (see the chapters on “The 
Chemistry of Emotion” in this book). 

One woman who, for fifteen years, had been a stu¬ 
dent along Truth lines, had obsessed her subconscious¬ 
ness with the idea of her personal inability to achieve, 
to such an extent that she was on the verge of a men¬ 
tal breakdown. She had had one nervous prostration 
and felt a second one coming on. She had had great 
ambitions for her life, but somehow had lost the grip 
on herself and the faith that she could achieve. This 
was her kink. It reacted, and produced the nervous¬ 
ness which would have probably brought on paralysis, 
or at least another nervous prostration. By one treat¬ 
ment of twenty minutes of stronger counter-suggestion 
this kink was straightened out and the woman was 
made over. 

When our nerves are raw with suffering and the 
doctors give no relief, try Psychology, the science of 
the mind; and where pink pills, colored water, poison 
and surgery do not effect a cure, remove the kink from 
the mind and become well. Maybe you have stepped on 
the hose of your mental water supply. Get off the 
hose and give it a chance for a full inrush of har¬ 
monious thinking. 

Psychology teaches how to use the mind in sickness, 
limitations, despondency, fear, grief, emotion, reverses 

or sorrow. 

A certain noted physician who used, probably, as 
much psychology in his practice as he did pills and 


240 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


prescriptions, diagnosed the case of a certain woman’s 
physical troubles as having been developed by worry. 
He igave this woman a prescription better than any 
druggist would have been able to compound. He told 
her to go home, put all of her worries into a box, lock 
the box, and throw the key away. If worries are the 
kink in your mind, remove the kink. 

We may not be content with life as it now is. Our 
surroundings, environment, associations, work and con¬ 
ditions may have a tendency to upset our poise and 
balance. The application of the laws of psychology 
will teach us how to be content, that is, have content¬ 
ment, which is brought into our lives by changing our 
mental attitude, and this, in turn, will change our con¬ 
ditions so that by an understanding of these laws and 
with right thinking, we will not have to be content with 
inharmonious conditions, associations, and environment. 

Psychology will train the mind so that every leaf 
will become a palm; every flower a censer; every bird 
a chorister; every sight a beauty, and every sound, 
music. 

The application of the laws of Applied Psychology 
will teach people to understand each other better; to 
view the individual life from the angle of the other 
person’s point of view; teach us how to associate with 
each other without friction; teach us how to overcome 
our own particular difficulties, emotions, and tempera¬ 
ments, and view ourselves and all individuals in our 
true relationship to society. Applied Psychology will 
teach us how to keep our thoughts and tongues in the 
safety notch. 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


241 


The application of psychological laws will revolu¬ 
tionize our ideas of criminal law, sociology, political 
and economic conditions, as well as juvenile govern¬ 
ment. 

It will bring to individuals, to society and to the 
nations, a peace that passes understanding. “Peace 
hath her victories no less renowned than war;” and 
that peace of the soul which passes all understanding 
can be had through Practical Psychology. 

Not only does Applied Psychology teach how to use 
the mind in sickness and misfortune (if we are unpsy- 
chological enough to believe in misfortune), but it also 
teaches us how to have charm, beauty, and personality. 
If a girl has a wretched complexion and a voice like a 
peacock, she can nevertheless become the dominant per¬ 
sonality of the office and the popular girl of her so¬ 
ciety. (See the chapter which treats on “How to De¬ 
velop Personality” in this book.) 

In short, Applied Psychology teaches the law of 
human life from every angle: physical, mental, moral, 
temperamental and spiritual. Shakespeare say®, “ ’Tis 
the mind that makes the body rich.” Every thought 
has its effect upon the body. The body in turn has its 
effect upon the mind. Psychology shows how the life 
and health, the feeling and emotions of each individual 
are determined by his particular temperament, with 
the corresponding reaction which the world gives to¬ 
ward him in a business and social way. 

Thoughts determine all the events of a man’s life 
as well as his physical, material, and spiritual destiny. 
If we are lubricating our “road to destruction,” instead 


242 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


of being rich in mind, psychology comes, bearing glad 
tidings of great joy, that the thoughts of failure may 
be crystallized, by the alchemy of thinking, into glor¬ 
ious possibilities. 

Applied Psychology produces, not only riches of the 
mind and soul, but material riches—prosperity and 
abundance. Poverty thoughts are abnormal and rob 
us of many things which life has for us. We should 
form the habit of feeling prosperous and thinking pros¬ 
perity. Psychology teaches us this. If a man thinks 
poverty he attracts to himself the very thing which he 
thinks. Job said, “The thing I feared has come upon 
me.” Psychology teaches us to change our mode of 
thinking, and with changing our thoughts of poverty 
into thoughts of prosperity, conditions for our material 
gain also change. 

I know of a young man who changed his habit of 
poverty-thinking to thinking prosperity thoughts; in¬ 
stead of pinching himself, buying the cheapest neckties, 
walking long distances to and from places of busi¬ 
ness to save carfare, he changed his attitude entirely, 
bought better clothes and rode on the street car; which 
in turn reacted upon his mental attitude so that he 
walked with more agility, spoke with more decision, and 
had his social and business intercourse with more force 
and power. This mental attitude was reflected in his 
demeanor and voice 'and action, and brought into the 
young man's life a higher position, with added in¬ 
fluence. 

A certain young man who had been more or less 
penurious, pinching and stinting himself, finally was 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


243 


aroused by one of our courses of public lectures to join 
our Advanced Course Class. It cost him twenty-five 
dollars, but when he let go of that twenty-five dollars 
his attitude of pinching was changed, and he assumed 
the attitude of a man who could afford to spend for his 
own advancement the sum of twenty-five dollars. He 
had had considerable difficulty with the concern which 
employed him and with his business associates. The 
attitude of prosperity and success, joy and content¬ 
ment which our class registered in his soul, changed his 
thinking and actions toward his employer and asso¬ 
ciates, which caused the employer to make an inquiry. 
When his “boss” found out that the young man was 
spending twenty-five dollars and going every night to 
our classes, he sent word to him that when the classes 
were over, his pay would be raised and he would be 
given a more responsible position. 

Everything is right if thinking is right. Thinking 
makes it so. Thinking abundance makes abundance 
and thinking prosperity brings prosperity. Thinking 
limitations weaves the web of limitation that much 
tighter. 

The laws of psychology, when applied to our life 
for success and for confidence and for courage, must 
of necessity remake our mental attitude, which in turn 
reflects upon our actions toward our family and our 
fellow men, in business as well as social associations. 

While the great economic depression of 1921 was 
gripping the country, a man took our course who had 
been out of employment for over six months. His men- 


244 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


tal attitude changed; he began again to have the old- 
time fervor and faith and confidence. 

Economic depressions in our country are psycho¬ 
logical, but, of course, to those who are caught in the 
meshes they are real as life itself. This man had caught 
the spirit of the country’s depression until he himself 
was downcast, despondent, and depressed. He was 
living in the slough df despondency. As our course 
proceeded, he began to realize that there was just as 
much of a chance for him to get a job as anyone else. 
Therefore, with this new confidence, he went to a place 
and put in his application for a position. He wafc told 
that there were six hundred applicants ahead of him for 
that one position. 

Six days before, that man would have been defeated 
by six applications ahead of him; but now, right think¬ 
ing had made him a positive, courageous, dominant 
dynamo of belief in himself (and this attitude was 
caught by the man who had charge of employing.) 
When told that there were six hundred ahead of him, 
he said that it didn’t matter, he would get the job 
anyway. With such confidence, of course he was going 
to get it. These courageous mental vibrations reached 
the mental receiving station of the employer, so that 
this man was awarded the position over six hundred 
others. 

If we are out of a job or if we are in poverty, think¬ 
ing will change our life. A discouraged, despondent, 
disheartened man will repel business instead of at¬ 
tracting it. He will repel the confidence of friends in¬ 
stead of attracting their confidence and support. Pros- 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


245 


perous thoughts make prosperous friends and condi¬ 
tions. Applied Psychology teaches us how to make the 
mind prosperous (for further study of this, see the 
chapter, “Poverty a Disease/’ in this hook). 

The way to change yourself and your world is to 
change your mind. “As a man thinketh in his heart 
so is he.” 

Applied Psychology will teach us how to prevent cer¬ 
tain forms of insanity. Insanity, the same as abnor¬ 
mality (defectives) is a condition of the subconscious 
mind. We have heard from scores of people who 
attended our lectures, who have been saved from sui¬ 
cide and from insanity. They had allowed conditions, 
environment, business reverses, failures, misfortunes 
and sorrows to get the upper hand of them (which, if 
continued, would have led them to insanity or suicide). 
By changing their mind, they changed their world; 
by changing their attitude, they saved themselves. 
(See also chapter XVI, “'Smile, Smile, Smile,” in this 
book.) 

It is as easy to have friends as it is to breathe. If 
you have a voice that sounds like a filing saw and a 
frigid face like a crocodile, or if you are considered a 
“grouch” and too cold to register on a Fahrenheit 
thermometer, the application of right thinking will 
soften your voice, change your face, and attract warmth 
and radiance. 

If we wish to have a friend we must be one; to be 
a friend, therefore, means to have a mind surcharged 
with the ambition to be friendly. If we are friendly 
toward others and continue to be so, no matter what 


246 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


may be the attitude of others toward us, friends are 
bound to be won. How we may get our minds pre¬ 
pared so that we can be friends with all, is a study 
of psychology which you will more fully understand 
as you continue reading “Applied Psychology and 
Scientific Living” and “Practical Psychology and Sex 
Life,” by the same author. 

Insomnia can be cured, in fact, the worst standing 
cases of insomnia can be cured by Applied Psychology 
—by proper suggestions to the subconscious mind. We 
have had patients who told us they had not slept well 
for twenty, thirty, and forty years. We have bad pa¬ 
tients who resorted every night for years: to opiates 
before sleep could be induced, and then could obtain 
only intermittent spells or snatches of sleep. We have 
taken such stubborn cases as these, and had the pa¬ 
tient sleeping within forty-eight hours. 

An understanding of the laws: of psychology will 
overcome temper, envy, jealousy, hatred, and all kinds 
of immoral habits; and in their place bring peace, 
poise and power. If a man has been poisoned by prej¬ 
udice or gangrened by jealousy, the antidote is the 
application of psychological laws. 

Thinking makes us what we are, and, in this great 
day in which women are emancipating themselves not 
only from serfdom, by having the franchise granted, 
but also from foolish customs of dress of the past, we 
are delighted to see that their wisdom in wearing 
short skirts is changing man’s mind to a great degree 
about the moral side of a woman’s ankle. There can 
be no more immodesty about a woman’s ankle or leg 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


247 


than a man’s, and when yon see the bumps and 
“spavins” displayed by some men, you are sure there is 
not as much. So, you see, everything is in the mind. 

I am a man of travel and have had considerable 
social intercourse for many years, and I know of the 
ways of life; but I cannot recall one instance within 
the last three years, since women have been wise 
enough to shorten their skirts, where I have observed 
a man stand on the street corner, look at a passing 
woman, and make any immoral remark. 

In the days when long skirts tripped women’s feet 
and gathered up all the microbes of the dirty side¬ 
walks, which, in turn, swished back into the atmos¬ 
phere to be breathed as she gathered the useless yard¬ 
age of dress goods around the calves of her legs when¬ 
ever she made an attempt to take a step, men would 
stand on the street corners and pass all kinds of in¬ 
delicate remarks if they happened to get a peep at a 
passing woman’s ankle. Now, man sees so many 
ankles that they are all the same to him; and there is 
no more immodesty about her ankle than about her 
wrist, except as thinking makes it so. Cover up the 
ankles, and the thing is different; show the ankles, 
and curiosity takes wings of the morning and ob¬ 
scenity flies to the uttermost parts of the earth. 

Right living or wrong living depends upon right 
thinking or wrong thinking, whether it he in regards 
to health, prosperity, happiness, success, or dress. 

Applied Psychology teaches us that we should work 
in conjunction with all the known laws of life and liv¬ 
ing, among which eating has its proper place—aye! a 


248 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


most important place, for nineteen out of twenty cases' 
of ill-health can be overcome by knowing what diet 
to use, so that the body may be nourished with as much 
and more pleasure in eating than in the old way of 
“stuffing.” With exercise and proper eating, brains 
may be developed and constipation cured. 

Psychology teaches that there is nothing ever lost 
under the law—all is good. If anything has been lost, 
whether it has been money, friendship, love, or what 
not, by a proper attitude of mind and operation of the 
law the lost will be returned. Not only will the prin¬ 
cipal be restored, but great interest will be added. If 
we have lost money, friends, love, happiness, by as¬ 
suming the right mental attitude these things will all 
be regained and very often many times over. 

Many years ago, the author took up a Government 
homestead, and out on the prairies of the great “Ameri¬ 
can Desert” he met a man whose face was covered with 
a heavy beard, whose eyes were hidden by colored 
glasses, who had gone out on the plains of the far 
West to “bury himself.” 

He had been a very prominent newspaper man of 
the state; had prospered as well as could be expected, 
had married a charming woman, and had had a great 
future before him; but within one year after he was 
married, he was told that his wife loved some other 
man. This was a shock which stunned his senses and 
nearly paralyzed his mind; but upon regaining his 
composure, he took time to think it over, and with 
steadiness and unflinching eyes he approached his wife 
and told her that if she loved this other man he would 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


249 


go away and let her live her life as she pleased; she 
could apply for a divorce and he would not appear 
against her. He was willing to give up the happiness 
of his life for that of the woman he loved. 

True to his solemn, manly promise to his wife, he 
did not appear—the divorce was granted, his breast 
torn open and his heart left bleeding. When I met this 
man, he had come to the prairies to forget that he 
ever had had a heart and to get away from life; to 
surrender all hopes of happiness and to “bury him¬ 
self.’’ 

Nine years passed. The man was unable to “bury 
himself.” After the great crushing blow had passed 
and he was able again to think, the little shack on the 
prairies, nine by twelve feet, was too small for him. 
His great spirit must have room to rove and his am¬ 
bition to soar; so he again entered the newspaper game 
and, within two or three years, became managing editor 
of a metropolitan newspaper in a distant state. Nine 
long years! Nine long years spent in living the life 
of a single man and trying to run away from the 
past, being true to the woman of his love; but you 
never lose anything in psychology but that it comes 
back with added interest. 

At the expiration of the nine years he—a successful 
editor in a big city—met a woman of refinement, of 
culture and education. Not only had she diplomas 
from American universities, but she had taken post¬ 
graduate work on the Continent and was an accom¬ 
plished musician, as well as a scholar. The man was 
attracted to the woman and, in time, they were happily 


250 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


married. After a lapse of many months letters came 
to me from this man, written in the midst of his busy 
editor-manager's life, and what do you think these 
letters conveyed? They were chuckfull of one theme, 
and that theme was “love.” 

He had met the lady of his heart; he had married the 
woman of his soul; he had regained many times over 
what he had lost. His own words are that he “did not 
know what love meant” before. The love for his first 
wife, he said, had been “puppy love.” Now soul had 
met soul; mind had met mind; spirit had met spirit, 
so that they truly were “two souls with but a single 
thought, two hearts that beat as one.” He had lost 
his love. He had been true to his first infatuation for 
nine years, and he gained more than he lost. “You 
will never lose but that you will gain,” is the law of 
psychology. 

If nature has made you as full of the grouch-bug as 
an egg is full of meat, and everybody considers you a 
crabbed, cranky, cross-grained old individual, the ap¬ 
plication of the law of psychology may turn that brow 
of brass and that apparent heart of stone into a soul 
filled with sympathy, love, and harmony. The power is 
within, and all who get the proper understanding will 
know how to use this power for the changing of their 
temperaments. 

Psychology teaches you how to listen and know 
when the bombs of trouble are coming and shells of 
misfortune are fired, and how to overcome all! 

Your success, your triumph, your victory, depend 
upon the mental attitude which you assume and main- 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


251 


tain. You are never defeated unless you think you 
are. You are never beaten unless you think you are. 
You have never lost unless you think you have lost. 
So long as a man believes that he is going to triumph 
just so long will that man be triumphant. 

It is all a matter of mind; of mind solely and abso¬ 
lutely. 

Study psychology, learn the laws, apply them and 
you are bound to win. 

You have already won if you think you can win. 
We can, because we think we can! Think you can be 
victorious and victory is yours! 


252 APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


CHAPTER XII 


WHAT IS LOVE?—HOW TO KEEP IT 


Love Is King—How to Use Love to Win What You 
Desire 

“Love is the fulfillment of the law.” 

When this pronouncement on love was made, it was 
in the realm of moral and religious development, by a 
man standing on the frontier of the world. Looking 
down the stream of centuries, he dared to prophesy 
that law would be superseded (fulfilled) by love. 

We would need no law if love reigned in the hearts 
of man. And love will reign! Love will yet rule the 
hearts and actions of mankind! 

Bayard Taylor says that “love is better than fame.” 
Love is the gold in the coinage of man’s emotions. 

When the human race reaches the consciousness of 
living in the realm of love, it will need no law. We 
have laws because there are people who have not 
reached the consciousness of living in love. They are 
still groveling in the jungle of animalism. 

We have laws because people have not yet reached 
the mental plane of playing the game of life squarely. 
We have laws because people do not know how to love. 
But the time is coming, I am firmly convinced, when 
there will be no need of laws because love for ourselves, 
love for our neighbors, love for our country, love for 




WHAT IS LOVE?—HOW TO KEEP IT 253 


other races and nations and love for God will eliminate 
the necessity of having laws. 

If we really love ourselves and our neighbors, our 
country, our fellowmen, and God, there will be no 
need of laws. 

As it is, we are mistrustful of the other fellow, of 
other nationalities. Distrust generates distrust just as 
love generates love; and under the law of attraction, 
when we mistrust some one there comes a time when this 
mistrust is manifested. 

The time will come when we shall love and because 
love begets love, there will be no mistrust between the 
nations of the earth, and when mistrust is eliminated 
from the consciousness of the nations, love will have 
a chance to rule. 

This seems idealistic, Utopian, but I believe that the 
Great Teacher of Galilee who taught His disciples, 
upon their request, how to pray, knew what He was 
talking about when He said, “Thy kingdom come, on 
earth as it is in heaven.” 

There is no law in heaven, wherever that may be, 
because heavenly beings need no law. Heaven is within 
us, and when heaven rests within the human heart, no 
law is necessary. Love is the fulfillment of the law. 

We will never save ourselves, nor will the world 
ever be saved or the great day ushered in for world¬ 
wide brotherhood, unless) we have love, one toward 
another. Battleships and armies, ammunitions, sub¬ 
marines, cannon balls and gas tanks can never bring 
“peace on earth, good will toward men.” They attract 
the very things we want to eliminate. If we live in the 


254 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


terms of battleships and cannons, we are, by the nat¬ 
ural law of attraction, going to have use for cannons 
and battleships some time or other. 

If we live in the terms of love, by the same token, 
the same natural law of attraction, we shall attract love 
to ourselves; and where love is, there can be no war. 
War comes because of wrong thinking, just as peace 
will come by right thinking. Think war, plan for war, 
talk war, expect war and you will get war. Plan love, 
talk love, think love, expect love and you will get love, 
and when the whole world is filled with love, there will 
be no need of arms and ammunition. 

In 1855 David Christy wrote a book entitled “ Cotton 
is King.” He had no use for any foolish sentiment 
about the abolition of slavery, he said. He took the 
hard facts of life as he found them; and he went on to 
show that the interests of the southern cotton growers 
demanded slavery if they were to prosper, and further 
that the interests of the northern manufacturers of 
cotton in the mills of Massachusetts and New York 
also demanded cheap cotton, which could best be pro¬ 
duced by slave labor in the South; and further, that 
the whole American people, wearing, most of them, 
cotton clothing, every day in the year, demanded this 
same system of production; and that therefore the 
whole agitation about the abolition of slavery was but 
the troubled dream of a few silly enthusiasts. ‘ ‘ Cotton 
is king,” he said, “and it will finally determine the is¬ 
sue!” 

But hard-headed, practical man though he was, he 
was utterly and eternally ‘mistaken. Cotton was not 


WHAT IS LOVE?—HOW TO KEEP IT 255 


king—love was king! 'Love of country and love of 
freedom, love of humanity and love of God—love was 
king even in that hour when David Christy was writ¬ 
ing out his high claims about the kingship of cotton. 
And, indeed, before the ink was fairly dry upon the 
pages of his book, amid the rattle of musketry and the 
roar of cannon, in the quiet tones of Lincoln’s Inaugu¬ 
ral Address and in the prayers of millions of people, 
the fundamental lordship of love was being effectively 
asserted. Men and women did great deeds in those 
days; they made great sacrifices; they carried through 
great enterprises, not because they were being paid for 
it in cotton—they were not paid for it at all. They did 
it because they loved—they loved their country, they 
loved liberty, they loved humanity, and they loved God 
more than any material advantage whatsoever. Love 
is king! 

“Love, and you will grow wise; grow wise, and you 
must love. One cannot truly love without growing 
better, and to grow better is to become more wise.”— 
Maeterlinck. 

Love will eliminate all festers that might turn into 
mental gangrene. 

Love will span all chasms of environment and leap 
all canyons of heredity and conditions. Love is king. 

An American missionary was going down the street 
of a city in China; he was not only filled with the 
Christian spirit of helpfulness but also with the Ameri¬ 
can spirit of geniality. A little Chinese girl approached 
him, carrying on her shoulder a crippled brother larger 
than herself. The missionary stopped the little girl, 


256 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


passed the time of day, and said: “That’s an awful 
burden you ’re carrying, isn’t it ? ” Whereupon the little 
Chinese girl put her brother tenderly down upon the 
sidewalk, looked up into the face of the American, and 
said, “Why, this isn’t a burden, this is my brother.” 

Love knows no burdens; love has no burdens. What¬ 
ever may be your burden, as you think it now, when 
you understand the law of love, you will know that by 
love burdens are transformed into tasks of joy. . 

Speaking of love, I wonder if you know any old 
maids ? 

Many years ago, when I was a young preacher, with, 
perhaps, more enthusiasm and pep than caution, I an¬ 
nounced, in keeping with my custom, through the 
medium of a home-made sign in front of the post office 
in that little town of probably four hundred inhabit¬ 
ants, that my subject, the following Sunday night, 
would be “Old Maids.” 

“Old Maids” didn’t sound very dignified to one of 
my deacons; some deacons are not able to tell the 
difference between actual and apparent dignity. This 
deacon, I suppose, did not know what an “old maid” 
really is—he may have thought he knew. He didn’t 
like the sound of the title and created considerable 
disturbance, within, and without the church, because 
“the preacher had announced such an outlandish sub¬ 
ject.” 

He didn’t want “old maids” discussed in the pulpit. 
He wanted “the gospel preached.” It didn’t interest 
him to hear a discussion on the spinster question which 
might help some woman over a rough and jagged path 


WHAT IS LOVE?—HOW TO KEEP IT 257 


of life. He would rather have had the minister 
preach a sermon on “hell-fire and brimstonetell the 
congregation that, unless they all got in the denomina¬ 
tion chariot by accepting our particular creed, doc¬ 
trine and mode of baptism, they were all doomed to 
hell, and that he, the deacon, and a few other “select’’ 
would he the only ones up in heaven, while the rest 
of his neighbors in that little community were writhing 
in eternal torment. 

What a beautiful picture some so-called Christians 
have made of the God that Christ revealed to man! 
The One whom Christ called Spirit, Love, and Faith! 
How depraved the human mind has become, to be able 
to fancy, depict, and imagine the Father of the human 
race as consigning some of the children of His crea¬ 
tion to eternal damnation, while a very few are saved 
for eternal heavenly bliss! 

It was with some difficulty that I was able to get 
the sermon across. The deacon had stirred up a lot 
of fuss and the church was not sure whether they 
wanted me to talk on “old maids” or not. I don’t 
know just what this man’s conception of an “old 
maid” had been but surely he did not have the right 
perspective—within a few months it became public 
that at the time of his effort to block my ministry, this 
“good church deacon,” who was a married man and 
had a family, had been supporting, and living with, 
another woman as well. 

If he had known some of the “old maids” I had seen, 
he would, perhaps, have gone up and down the streets 
with a megaphone, crying out to the people to come to 


258 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


church Sunday night to find out what kind of a person 
a real “old maid” is. The kind of spinster that I had 
in mind and about whom I spoke, is that particular 
specimen of femininity who is utterly unselfish in her 
love and service to others. 

The type of woman whom I call “old maid” is not 
the caricatured dried-up, mincing, gossiping “maiden 
lady” who has been unfortunate enough to “miss con¬ 
nection.” The modern “spinster” is a woman who has 
given up her own life and ambitions submerging them in 
the lives of others. The type I call “spinster” is a 
woman who, like all other women, has dreamed of having 
a home of her own with those to call her “wife” and 
“mother,” with children clinging to her aprons and 
babies cooing in the cradle. An “old maid” is a woman 
who has dreamed this dream but, who, in her unselfish 
desire to serve, relinquishes the ambition of her life, 
foregoes the pleasure of having a home of her own and 
the love of a husband and children, that she might 
spend maternal instinct and love upon the children of 
some other woman. 

Speaking of love, there cannot be a much higher 
manifestation of the instinct of maternity in the bosom 
of womanhood than the example of the “old maid” 
who gives up all of the cherished ambitions and desires 
of her heart for some one else. 

The type I call “old maid” is the woman whose sis¬ 
ter has died and left several children without a mother; 
the type I call “old maid” is the woman who refuses 
to become a bride at the entreaties of her lover be- 


WHAT IS LOVE?—HOW TO KEEP IT 259 


cause she feels she has a duty to perform, caring for 
these children or an aged father or mother. 

Do you know of a maiden who has crushed the 
outcries of her own heart for a home of her own 
and children to call her mother, w T ho is devoting all 
her time to taking care of an aged or helpless rela¬ 
tive? She doesn’t go out with young people, she doesn’t 
keep company with young men; she doesn’t know what 
happiness or joy is, taking care of that crabbed old 
father. Suppose you were to tell that girl that she 
doesn’t know what life is. Suppose you were to tell 
a real “old maid” anything like that—she would look 
at you with an expression of wonderment as though 
unable to fathom the world whence you came. She 
would say: “Why, taking care of him is not a 
burden; he is my father.” True love, whether it be in 
the bosom of a woman or in the heart of a man, tram 
scends all apparent difficulties and burdens and trans^ 
forms them into the crystallization of contentment and 
happiness. 

Rebellion against environment and our position in 
life often consumes energy sufficient to consummate 
our ambitious desires if used to train the mind to over¬ 
come the obstacles in our path. 

Thought is one of the forms of energy. That is a 
scientific fact and must be remembered. If we spend 
our energy in discontent and rebellion against fate, 
we cannot use it shaping new conditions. Instead of 
despising and hating what we have, there is great wis¬ 
dom in seeking for something to love, something to be 
glad of in our present environment, then steadily turn- 


260 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


ing our thoughts toward the time when whatever we 
want will come to us. 

The very first thing necessary to change our condi¬ 
tions and environment is to change our mental attitude 
in regard to them; and the quickest, best way to 
change our mental attitude toward conditions and 
environment is to find something to love right where 
we are. There is somebody or something in our office, 
in our home, in our present surroundings to love, if we 
look for it. Love yourself, if you cannot love any¬ 
thing else. Surely there is some quality within your¬ 
self that is worthy of love. Put on your spectacles and 
find it. 

Yes, there is something you can love. Use your energy 
for loving, and do not waste it on bemoaning your 
condition. The energy spent in complaining and be¬ 
moaning your fate, if properly used in constructive 
thinking, would take you from the place you wish to 
leave to the very place where you want to he. 

Thought is energy! To waste your energy brood¬ 
ing over ill-luck and circumstances, is to burn up your 
mental force which, put to the right use, would lift 
you out of your “slough of despond/’ But by com¬ 
plaining and fretting and moaning, you are uncon¬ 
sciously putting your feet deeper and deeper into the 
mire. 

Oh, yes! There is something you can find to love! 
If you are living in the same place, with the same, 
monotonous, treadmill, humdrum day’s work ahead of 
you that you have had for the last twenty years, there 
is something you can find to love in that home. After 


WHAT IS LOVE?—HOW TO KEEP IT 261 


twenty years of living with John, you will not make 
him a better man or help him to get into a better posi¬ 
tion by continually holding the thought over him that 
he is not what you want him to be. 

Maybe John hasn’t been as successful as you ex¬ 
pected him to be; maybe he has lost the ambition that 
you thought he had; maybe John isn’t doing the best 
he can. That may be true; but when you wonder what 
is the matter with John you prevent John from being 
what he ought to be. You should hold no doubt- 
thought about John, wasting your energy in thinking 
of him as not being what you had thought him, but by 
constructive thinking, change him by changing your 
own attitude toward him. 

Of course the same thing can be done with Mary. 
If she isn’t the Mary that you thought you had mar¬ 
ried, you prevent her from being the kind of Mary 
you want, by wondering why Mary isn’t the Mary 
that you thought Mary would be. 

We extend to you our heartiest sympathy if you 
have to live the same old monotonous way, day in and 
day out, treading the same old mill that you have been 
treading for twenty years, but you will never get out 
of it by wasting your time and energy worrying 
about it. 

There is something in that home you can find to love! 
You can love the opportunity of having children that 
call you mother—the glorious privilege of keeping a 
home together. Many a woman would give years of 
her life for this privilege. Love your home, love the 
things within the home, love your children, love your¬ 
self, offer up thanksgiving and gratitude that you are 


262 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


queen of your home and by taking such an attitude, 
by dwelling on love and thinking about your queen- 
ship, you will lift yourself from the place where you 
are, to the place where you want to be. 

Suppose you have been washing dishes for the last 
twenty years at the same old sink—you’ll never get 
away from washing those dishes if you keep your mind 
in the dishpan. Find something about the dish-wash¬ 
ing to love—love the dishrag. 

I can see women all over the country today “loving 
the dishrag,” as they go about the duties that have 
become monotonous to them. I see them all over the 
country, singing as they wash the dishes, I see them 
all over the country leaving the dishpans and the dish- 
rags behind, having loved themselves away from them 
for good. 

I believe I have washed more dishes in my time 
than any twenty housewives combined. I used to have 
to wash dishes by the tubful—that was before the day 
of patent dishwashers. Among the relics of my life 
are some books I still have that became splattered with 
grease as they were propped in front of the big tubs 
where I washed dishes. I washed dishes and learned 
my lessons. 

I loved the opportunity to study during my work 
when I put in fourteen hours a day, going to night 
school, and soon loved myself out of the dish-washing 
job. I loved myself out of the dish-tub by loving my 
books and my lessonsi. Women! if you don’t like 
to wash dishes, you have my sympathy. I don’t blame 
you, but you will never get away from dish-washing 


WHAT IS LOVE?—HOW TO KEEP IT 263 


unless you learn to love something around the dish¬ 
washing business. 

Tomorrow, begin the new life by singing as you 
wring the dishrag. 

Mrs. Bush is a born psychologist: She has never 
worried about anything and never will. “What’s the 
use, a hundred years from now you won’t know the 
difference.” She didn’t like washing dishes, and when 
I was a preacher at fifty dollars a month salary, with 
a family to support and Mrs. Bush the head of the 
family, there didn’t seem to be any chance, so far as 
mortal eyes could see, of Mrs. Bush ever getting away 
from the dishpan. But we never gain our point by 
worry and fretting and bemoaning and crying “just 
my luck.” Mrs. Bush put her love into the fifty-dollar- 
a-month home and into the dish-washing until the time 
came when she didn’t have to wash dishes; she had 
others to do it for her. 

Of course, if you like washing dishes and your heart 
is there, it is a most commendable thing to do, for 
civilization requires clean dishes. I suppose I have 
used this as an illustration because washing dishes was 
most distasteful to me, when I had to do it. 

When I was a minister, it was the custom for minis¬ 
ters to spend a great deal of their time calling. I 
never could see the virtue in ministerial calling as gen¬ 
erally practiced. The idea that a full-sized man should 
use up shoe leather traveling from house to house, 
wearing out doorbells by calling on women, never 
appealed to me as a man’s job; it surely seemed as 


264 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


though a real man could spend his time in a more pro¬ 
fitable way. 

However, it was the custom; and as my churches ex¬ 
pected calling, I went at it with the spirit to do all of 
the calling that was expected of me, and I did it. I 
served two churches that will say I did more calling 
than any other minister they ever had. 

The time came when I didn’t have to< call. When I 
became a minister of a city church and had my assist¬ 
ants and church callers, I did very little personal call¬ 
ing. I had lifted myself from the place where I did 
not want to be, to the place I desired, by finding some¬ 
thing to love; for, as I did my calling on the women, 
I just loved the women so much that I loved myself 
out of the calling and was able to have others do that 
work for me. 

A little newsboy in Pittsburgh had had a poor day’s 
business.. He came home at night without having had 
any supper and went to bed. The next morning he 
got up early and, without saying a word to his mother, 
slipped fifteen cents under her breakfast plate; then he 
went out to peddle papers. The mother, thinking that 
the little boy had reserved enough change for his 
breakfast, took the few pennies that he had left and 
bought her sustenance for the day. Poor business con¬ 
tinued with the boy; all that day he had no meals, no 
breakfast, no dinner, no supper. Again he came home, 
as cheerful as he could be, and gave his mother what 
little money he had made. It wasn’t until well into 
the next day that he got anything to eat. His great 
love for his mother prompted him to give all of his 


WHAT IS LOVE?—HOW TO KEEP IT 265 


little earnings, that she might have something to eat. 
That poor little newsboy came to be a professor in one 
of the greatest universities in America. Love knows 
only joy and happiness in service. Love knows no bur¬ 
dens ; love has no burdens. 

Thomas Dreier says: “There are as many persons 
starving for love and friendship as there are starving 
for bread.” 

When we remember that famine is considered a 
“normal” condition in India, we have a way of reckon¬ 
ing the enormous number of people who are virtually 
dying for want of love. We are told that in India one- 
third of the population never has enough to eat from 
the time they are born until the time they die; that 
two hundred millions of people go to bed hungry every 
day. If it be true that as many people are dying from 
love, how incumbent it is upon us, who have health and 
abundance and cheerfulness and psychology, to pass 
our kindness, our helpful thoughts and deeds, our love 
and good wishes on to others! 

You may not know it but right now there is some 
one working at the bench with you, or behind the 
same counter, or in the work-shops or business office, 
whose heart is crying out for love. You will pass many 
on the street tomorrow, and be in personal contact with 
others, whose hearts are dying for your love, kindness 
and sympathy. Love is king! Let us crown the king 
of love in our hearts, and save the world from love 
starvation. 

A business man who was in the depths of despair, 
was told to change his mind—“about face.” Instead 


266 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


of thinking of things as he found them, he was; to think 
of things as he desired them to he: He was told to 
make affirmations of employment, success, prosperity, 
harmony, growth, happiness. At first in derision, then 
in amusement, then in curiosity he began to repeat the 
words. He found that a great calmness came over him 
while he pronounced the affirmations and finally re¬ 
peated them with new strength and interest. Hope 
followed, and the ambitions which he had thought dead 
awoke to life. Prosperity came next, and affluence 
beckoned in the doorway of faith. 

Moral disaster, spiritual shipwreck and material fail¬ 
ure often engulf men because they do not know how to 
love—to love instead of fear, to be thankful instead 
of complaining, to use constructive energy in lifting 
themselves from where they are to the places where 
they want to be. Love somebody and something, and 
lift yourself up. 

If it is your environment from which you would 
like to change, do not consume your energy by think¬ 
ing of what an unpleasant neighborhood you are in 
and what uncongenial neighbors you have: Energy 
spent in that way of thinking will be consumed, and 
you will continue to have to live there. Instead, spend 
your energy in constructive thinking; dwell on the 
happiness that will be yours when you will have moved 
to the place where you want to go. Love what you 
have, so that you will have more love to love what you 
are going to have. 

During the war, it was most difficult to get homes 
to rent, in some of the cities. I had a friend who was 


WHAT IS LOVE?—HOW TO KEEP IT 267 


living in a neighborhood she did not like, and she 
hnally decided that she ought to make a change. She 
did not condemn the house she was in or criticize the 
neighbors around her, but she began to concentrate 
her thoughts upon finding a house to her liking, in a 
neighborhood that would be pleasing to her. She 
‘‘loved’’ the house and the neighborhood she was in, 
and said beautiful and kindly things about her neigh¬ 
bors. 

These love currents of pleasure and happiness lodged 
in the consciousness of a man who had a very beautiful 
house, in a most desirable part of the city, which he 
was soon going to leave inasmuch as he was leaving 
the city. 

He caught the love vibrations of this woman and 
was attracted to her. He said that he did not want to 
rent his house to everyone, but believed that she would 
enjoy having the privilege of living in his home. Thus, 
she got the house to her liking, in a neighborhood very 
select, because she lifted herself from her surround¬ 
ings, by constructive thinking—by finding something 
around her to love. The more we love, the more suc¬ 
cess and happiness will be ours. 

In Philadelphia lived two boy chums. They fell in 
love with the same girl. As time passed, one of these 
young men began to see the serious situation to which 
the three had unconsciously come. He thought every¬ 
thing of his chum, and he loved the girl as only a 
young man in the flush of his first love could love. He 
saw that the time was coming when the girl must make 
a choice between himself and his friend—and he saw 


268 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


that this choice was going to be a great trial to her. 
It did not matter which man she gave her heart to, 
there would be a parting of the ways between herself 
and the other man, and this other man and his friend, 
which could not but wring the heart-strings of all 
concerned until they bled. 

If he were to be the lucky suitor, his friend would 
have his heart torn open perhaps never to heal. As he 
saw it, there was but one solution and that solution he 
carried out to the utmost with the spirit of a man and 
with a courageous soul. 

Without saying a word to either his friend or the 
girl, he left the city and disappeared from their lives. 

After twenty-five years had elapsed, this man, who 
had lived a lonely life, loving the girl as in the days 
of his young manhood—true to the only woman he 
ever could love—returned to the city; he returned 
after both his sweetheart and his friend had died. They 
had married shortly after his disappearance and three 
children had been born to them. His chum had not pros¬ 
pered very well, as the world judges material gain, 
while he himself had become a very rich man. 

Upon hearing of the death of his old friend and 
sweetheart, he searched for the children and told them 
that it would give him much delight and pleasure to 
see that they were started in business or in whatever 
vocation they might choose. 

Thus his love which he had relinquished, twenty-five 
years ago, for the sake of another, continued to bless 
the children of his dearest friends. That kind of love 


WHAT IS LOVE?—HOW TO KEEP IT 269 


is king, and that kind of 'love, in time to come, will 
reign supreme in the hearts of men. 

When love becomes the fulfillment of the law, man 
will consider the other person’s feelings before his 
own. He will be willing, if need be, to go to the ex¬ 
tremes in rendering service to others. 

Ah, yes, love is king! Love knows no burdens; love 
transcends all conditions; love is the fulfillment of the 
law. 

It is the opinion of many that Rosa Bonheur has no 
superior in the realm of animal portrait painting. There 
is a reason: she was a lover of animals; her love was 
mixed with the very paints and colors of her wonder¬ 
ful artistic productions. 

Nero was a big lion of the jungle: he was a most 
ferocious beast. He had been captured and brought, as 
had many other lions, to be trained and exhibited be¬ 
fore the eyes of the public to show the power man has 
over the lower kingdom. But Nero was a more spirited 
beast than the other lions; the lion tamers were not 
able to curb him. The hot blood of his native jungle 
ancestors surged through his veins with a spirit of 
wildness so that he never came “under man’s control.” 

His body bore marks of many beatings—welts showed 
on his hide which would stay as long as he lived. One 
eye had been jabbed out by the animal trainer in his 
effort to curb the king of the jungle. He was not 
worth much to the animal trainers, since he could not 
be exhibited. 

Rosa Bonheur bought this untamable, unconquerable, 
ferocious lion and had him taken to her home. It was 


270 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


not long, we are told, before Nero was as docile as a 
domesticated cat, won over by her gentleness and her 
love. After her day's work she would doff her apron 
and Nero would be allowed to come into the studio un¬ 
muzzled, and she would romp and play with him with 
all of the ease and joy with which most women fondle 
their pet kitten. She had used no weapons, no prods, 
no hot irons to jab and torture the lion. Love had suc¬ 
ceeded where brute force had failed. 

The time came for her to leave him and travel abroad 
for a year, so Nero was- sold to another animal trainer. 
Now came a repetition of his former experience: beat¬ 
ings, poundings, welts. The other eye was put out by 
the keeper in an attempt to master the brute. 

After Rosa Bonheur had returned, she was visiting 
a circus in a small town, observing the various animals 
in their cages. A big lion was in one of the cages with 
both his eyes out, the sightless sockets unmindful of 
the crowd as it surged by. 

When Rosa Bonheur came to this cage, she imme¬ 
diately recognized her old pet. She said just one word, 
* 4 Nero," and as soon as that word was uttered the 
lion sprang to his feet and dashed against the side of 
the cage with isuch force that he was stunned. As he 
fell back into the cage, he gave a peculiar cry of wel¬ 
come that had been his way of greeting her in the days 
when Rosa Bonheur was his mistress. 

She took Nero back to her home, and when the lion 
died, both his paws were resting in the lap of the 
famous painter. When everything else fails, love will 
succeed. 


WHAT IS LOVE?—HOW TO KEEP IT 271 


You can give nothing greater in this world, whether 
to animal or to man, than love. Love is king. 

After Livingstone had made his way through the 
jungles of Africa and had not been heard from, for 
years, Stanley made his sensational search in the heart 
of Africa for the lost explorer. As Stanley went from 
tribe to tribe, inquiring if they had seen Livingstone, 
describing him and explaining that it was a white 
man, their faces would light up with pleased remem¬ 
brance of the kind missionary-doctor who had passed 
that way years before, as, in foreign tongue, they gave 
expression to their gratitude and love. 

Love is the universal language. Love transcends 
language, nationality, and species. Love is king. 

You can put the most untutored persons into the 
highest society, and if they have a reservoir of love in 
their hearts they will not behave themselves unseemly. 
Carlyle said of Robert Burns that “there was no truer 
gentleman in Europe than the plowman poet.” It was 
because he loved everything—the mouse, the daisy, and 
everything, great and small, that God had made. With 
this simple passport he could mingle in society and 
enter courts and palaces right from his little cottage 
on the banks of the Ayr. 

Love is the fulfillment of the law. If you do this 
one thing—love—you will do the other one hundred 
and one things without thinking of them. If you love 
you will unconsciously fulfill the whole law—the law 
of attraction will draw home—prosperity, peace and 
power. This old world of ours is as yet but a child in a 


272 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


go-cart and the practice of love is still in its swaddling 
clothes. 

If we want to have friends we must cultivate a taste 
for friends, if we would love God we must cultivate a 
taste for God. Love does not live without nourish¬ 
ment ; we can only keep love by loving. 

What makes a good sculptor? Practice. 

What makes a good musician, a good ball player? 
Practice. 

What makes a good lover? Practice. 

Love attracts everything else. We must work for 
love with the same intensity as we do for character 
and prosperity. 

To be lovable is to practice love. That man who 
thinks he can have love in his home and keep it, living 
a selfish life, spending his time at the clubs or elsewhere, 
leaving his family to get along without his presence; 
who thinks that he can wield the scepter of a tyrant 
and have everyone in the family dance at his fiddling, 
has a wrong conception of how to keep love. If love 
is to be kept, we must work just as hard as we worked 
w T hile we were getting it. Love cannot be bought; love 
cannot be cornered; love cannot thrive by limitation; 
we can keep love only by showing the same persistent 
spirit with which we sought love and got it. 

Of course, we do not mean that man is the only side 
of the household to manifest more love. The woman 
who nags or pouts or has fits of mood or dictates or 
domineers is just as guilty as the man who plays the 
tyrant in the home. 

Love can only be kept by loving. Happy homes can 


WHAT IS LOVE)?—HOW TO KEEP IT 273 


only be maintained by all in the household doing their 
share of loving. Each must spend as much energy and 
time and effort in keeping love as is spent in getting it. 

Love is king, but the king can keep his crown only 
by constant watchfulness and untiring effort. 

The world has been dominated by many and divers 
“ages,” past and present. The Age of Copper had its 
inception in Egypt, the Age of Law (Pericles) in 
Greece, the Age of Art and its renaissance in Florence. 
We speak of the Age of Cotton, of Electricity, of 
Steel; but neither copper, law, art, cotton, electricity 
nor steel is king. Love is king. 

New “ages” may rule, one after another, and one 
after another be uncrowned by succeeding ages, but 
through the corridors of time, love will ever be ac¬ 
claimed the mightiest monarch of all. 

The brow of man has been adorned with the wreath 
of love, fashioned by the hand of Divinity; and no 
ruthless hand of greed, ambition or power w T ill ever be 
able to dethrone man’s noblest passion—love. 

From Plato to Herbert Spencer, reformers have 
toiled to frame new schemes of sociology. There is 
none so grand as the sociology of Jesus of Nazareth. 
As yet we have not practiced the sociology of the New 
Testament; we have spent the centuries wrangling over 
its theology. Surely, man’s relation to God is of para¬ 
mount importance. But it will never be rightly es¬ 
tablished unless we take up at the same time the other 
problem—man’s relation to man. 

Theology took no account of man as man, as an indi¬ 
vidual human being. Man was a mere unit of theological 


274 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


doctrine, an unknown quantity. He was, therefore, 
taught to believe through fear, rather than love. Now 
we are learning slowly that “to believe is to love/’ 
that the first commandment is to love God, and the 
second, like unto it, to love man. 

To love man means to assist one another in all life’s 
transactions, and that means to help ourselves. Love 
as a motor power and as a practical working basis is 
coming to be recognized throughout the world. 

The monotone of the old thelogical chants, “In the 
beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” is 
being supplanted by the ringing tones and forceful 
gestures of the practical man of business and of public 
affairs. We can best “save” others and add to our 
own “treasure in heaven” by rendering unselfish serv¬ 
ice, by “loving.” Love is king, in business and gov¬ 
ernment as well as in religion and in the home. 

Reformers and preachers had acted on the supposi¬ 
tion that men would respond to fear, to authority. 
Priests and prophets had thundered of law, had fright¬ 
ened with threats. Christ spoke of mercy and love, and 
lo! where one man had responded to fear, a hundred 
were answering to love! Love had been in their hearts 
and they knew it not; but when the Son of Man spoke 
to them with the voice of love, they understood its 
language. 

Lyman Abbot says that “a thousandfold more men 
have responded to the parable of the prodigal son, 
which is but the word of love, than ever responded to 
threat or penalty.” 

Christ taught that we are children of God. He did 


WHAT IS LOVE)?—HOW TO KEEP IT 275 


not argue this, He asserted it. “When ye pray,” He 
told the disciples, “say, ‘Our Father/ ” 

Men and women who had lost hope, who had been 
without love and without faith, or at least, had no 
consciousness of faith and hope and love, began to 
flock around Him because by His words, by His very 
presence, He invoked in them the faith, the hope, the 
love, which was in them, but had been dormant be¬ 
cause unrecognized. 

Fear of punishment, dread and horror had been so 
long the only fruits that had been grown on the “tree 
of humanity,” that Christ’s psychological teachings of 
love took root and grew as if in virgin soil. 

When the church drifted away from its moorings— 
the love of Christ—it watered its stock and has not been 
able since to pay dividends on its inflated capital. 

It cannot be said today that humanity sits like an 
owl on a dead limb upon the tree of knowledge and 
hoots the same old hoots that have been hooted for the 
last eighteen hundred years. 

We are proclaiming today the gospel of the Son of 
Man who came to give His life as a ransom for many— 
who loved us that we might learn to love God and 
man. 

Psychology is the unadulterated gospel of love. 

Christ led no army, He wrote no book, built no 
church, spent no money; but He loved and so con¬ 
quered, and this is beginning to strike home. Paul’s 
argument is gaining adherents that when all proph¬ 
ecies are fulfilled and all knowledge becomes obso- 


276 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


lete and all tongues grow unintelligible, love the 
greatest thing in the world, will remain. 

This is our hope for the world; that we shall learn 
to love and, in learning that, unlearn all anger and 
wrath and evil speaking and malice and bitterness. 

Dwight L. Moody, the greatest evangelist of his day, 
had a Christian friend in business who had a hobby 
of putting his time and money into a Sunday school. 
To insure its success, he employed salaried teachers. 
He had built up a Sunday school of fifteen hundred 
youngsters. His pride in his institution was expressed 
in the assertion that no boy or girl going through that 
Sunday school should be disciplined except by love. 

It doesn’t matter what goal a man sets himself or 
what motto may become his life’s inspiration, he usually 
reaches a place where conditions rise up to blast his 
hopes; and it is the man who can, in turn, rise up with 
a majestic faith in himself to prevent the blowing up, 
who becomes great and remains great. 

This man came to a place where the blasting of his 
hopes seemed to be unavoidable. A young urchin of 
the street who had never been in a Sunday school be¬ 
fore and had learned nothing of religion in his home, 
came to the school one Sunday with the defiant atti¬ 
tude of a young Bolshevik. He hadn’t been there long 
before he punched the boy next to him in the ribs, 
stepped on the toes of another one, talked out loud, 
got up and kicked his chair over. 

By the time the class was over, discipline was dis¬ 
organized; and when the youngster came back a Sun- 


WHAT IS LOVE;?—HOW TO KEEP IT 277 


day or two after that and did the same thing, the class 
was demoralized and the teacher discouraged. 

The superintendent, true to his standard of “dis¬ 
cipline by love, ,, with gracious mien transferred the 
little outlaw to another class; but by this time the 
urchin felt emboldened, so he repeated his perform¬ 
ance: gave a jab in the ribs of the boy next to him, 
stamped on the toes of the boy at the other side; 
treated another to a punch in the back, jumping up 
and kicking over the chair between times. The teacher 
was chagrined and the class horrified. 

After this class had also been demoralized, the super¬ 
intendent changed the boy again, but the change was 
only a repetition of what had gone before, and finally 
his patience was exhausted and his notion of “ruling 
by love” changed. So he called a meeting of his 
teachers and made it known that he had had quite 
enough of this one particular boy; that the whole Sun¬ 
day school was affected by the spirit of the outlaw and 
that if he continued, all classes would be disorganized 
and the Sunday school disrupted. He told the teachers 
that, the following Sunday he was going to bring that 
boy onto the platform and make ap example of him. 
He was going to show him and the rest of the school 
that any scholar who thought he could come into that 
institution and tincture the atmosphere with his un¬ 
holy actions, would better take a second thought before 
he’d try it again. Therefore, he informed the teachers, 
“he was going to reprimand this boy in front of the 
whole school and expel him.” 

One of this superintendent’s teachers was a rich 


278 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


woman. She didn’t have to teach; she wasn’t com¬ 
pelled to spend her time and strength in such a trying 
position as a Sunday school teacher’s, but, despite her 
riches, her heart was in the right place. She had an 
ambition to serve, and was doing the best she knew, 
along with all the other teachers in the school. She 
told the superintendent that, before he made an ex¬ 
ample of this boy, she would like very much to have 
the privilege of having him transferred to her class. 
The superintendent replied that it was no use: the boy 
had been given lots of time and plenty of chances to 
show a disposition to act fair and play square, and he 
had betrayed the confidence placed in him time and 
time again. 

The superintendent informed this godly woman that 
he had thought all boys could be won by love, but this 
boy couldn!t; that this was a time when, if not the 
rod, something just as strong had to be administered. 
But the woman insisted with such delicate persistency 
in behalf of the urchin of the street, that the superin¬ 
tendent finally yielded, saying that if she wanted to 
take the boy she could, but it would do no good. 

Next Sunday the boy was transferred into this rich 
woman’s class. He sat there, wiggling awhile, attract¬ 
ing the attention not only of his class, but of the other 
classes around him. Then the spirit of the “Old Nick” 
prompted him to punch the boy to his right in the eye, 
to jab the boy to his left in the ribs, step on the toes 
of another, get up and kick over his chair. The teacher 
was not only chagrined, but dumbfounded. She didn’t 


WHAT IS LOVE?—HOW TO KEEP IT 279 


know what to say or do. Love was not only speech¬ 
less but powerless as well. 

When she attempted to reason with the little mon¬ 
ster about his deportment, he kicked her on the shins 
and spat in her face—love hadn’t gotten very far. 
She was unable to say anything further until the last 
hymn before dismissal was being sung„ when she 
leaned over the boy and said: “I should like to have 
you walk home with me,” to which he retorted, “G’wan, 
I ain’t goin’ to walk home wid you, or no place.” 
Then the teacher, not giving up hope, said: “Well, if 
you won’t walk home with me then I’ll go with you,” 
but the- boy wasn’t used to Sunday school teachers 
going home with him, so he blurted out with em¬ 
phasis : “Naw, you hain’t goin’ to go home wid me, 
I wouldn’t have nuthin’ to do wid you, I won’t be 
seen on the street wid you, an’ what’s more, I’m never 
going to come back to your old Sunday school, I’m 
done with it. See?” 

Then the teacher said, “If you won’t go home with 
me and if I can’t go home with you, you come to my 
house next Tuesday. I won’t be there, just ask the 
servant and he’ll give you a package.” But the boy 
replied in his curt way that he wouldn’t come for no 
package of hers; he wouldn’t be seen coming up her 
steps, and that he was done with her, done with the 
Sunday school, and done with everything that per¬ 
tained to the old church, “see?” 

But the woman knew that the boy’s curiosity had 
been aroused, so the package, according to schedule, 
was left with the servant. Tuesday came, and with it 
came the boy. The servant handed him the package. 


280 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


The boy went down the steps and back to his home as 
fast as he could go. When he opened the package he 
saw some things that are appealing to little boys. 
There was a new suit of clothes and a pair of shoes 
with brass buckles, such as he had never had before, 
and a red necktie; but there was something more in 
the package than the clothes and the material gifts. 
The greatest thing in the package was a letter from 
his Sunday school teacher. The letter had in it some¬ 
thing to this effect: “My dear George, I am sorry 
you’re never coming to our Sunday school again and 
this is just a little token of my remembrance and love. 
I want you to know that as long as I live I shall pray 
for you every night; I shall pray God to make you an 
honest, upright, prosperous citizen; I shall pray God 
that you will be an honor to Him and become a most 
successful man. While I live, you may know that your 
one-time Sunday school teacher is praying for you.” 

This was something new to the little fellow. He had 
been raised in a home of cuffs and scoldings, repri¬ 
mand and fault-finding. He had never had any one 
speak to him with such tenderness as this, and the 
tears ran down his cheeks. 

The next morning he ran to his teacher’s home; he 
got there before she was up. He waited until she came 
downstairs. When she saw the boy she asked, “Well, 
George, what brings you here?” and George said: “Oh, 
Ma’am, you have been so kind to me; I never had any 
one in all the world speak to me like you have. I 
never before had any one give me any words of en¬ 
couragement and love; and to think that you would 
pray for me after I was so mean to you, makes me so 


WHAT IS LOVE?—HOW TO KEEP IT 281 


miserable and so unhappy that I just wanted to ask you 
to forgive me. If you will only forgive me, Miss, and 
let me come back to Sunday school, I promise I’ll be 
the best boy in your class.” 

True to his promise, the boy went to that Sunday 
school in this teacher’s class, and there was no better 
scholar out of the fifteen hundred in that big school 
than this one-time-outlaw street urchin. Where im¬ 
patience and anger had brought no results, love had 
eononered. Love is the fulfillment of the law. LOVE 
IS KING! 


282 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


CHAPTER XIII 


VIBRATION 


The Greatest Law in the Universe—Just Lately Under¬ 
stood—What it is and How To Use it for Your 
Immediate Success and Health — The 
Prevention and Cure of Worry 

All life is vibration. Alexander Graham Bell says 
that it is remarkable that nearly all recent steps in 
science have had to do with discoveries of new vibra¬ 
tions; and, just as we are in our swaddling clothes in 
the understanding of electricity, so are we in infancy 
in the understanding of the law of vibration. It may 
be that this century will bring us more wonderful dis¬ 
coveries in the realm of vibration than the last cen¬ 
tury brought to us in the realm of invention. 

In 1921, Judge Graham of San Francisco based a 
decision against a woman who disclaimed the father of 
her child, upon blood vibration tests, administered by 
Dr. Albert Abrams’ “ oscilloscope.’’ Dr. Abrams, Pro¬ 
fessor in Stanford Medical School, San JFrancisco, 
claims that, not only can parentage be determined by 
vibration through the use of the “oscilloscope,” but 
approximate age, race, ancestry and sex may also be¬ 
come known: electronic vibrations of. the blood form 
the basis for this new phase of science. 

The case referred to was that of a mother, Mrs. Del 
Secco, divorced from her husband, Julius Sorine, who 
went to court to gain custody of their six-year-old boy, 




VIBRATION 


283 


Eugene. Mrs. Del Secco said, in court, that she had 
been untrue to their married life and that Eugene was. 
not the son of her own husband. Drops of blood from 
the baby and from the father were taken. The instru¬ 
ment, according to the reports of Dr. Abrams, showed 
the same rate of vibration and synchronized. 

In other words the blood of the father and of the 
son vibrated in unison, indicating that the boy’s par¬ 
entage was legitimate and that the mother had not told 
the truth. 

All life is vibration. We say that the bell is a 
sounding body, but this is not true; all that the bell 
does is to start vibration in the air, and when these 
vibrations reach the velocity of thirty-two thousand 
per second, the sound becomes apparent to the human 
ear. The human ear distinguishes sound when vibra¬ 
tions are produced at the rate of thirty-two thousand 
to thirty-eight thousand per second. Above thirty- 
eight thousand per second the vibrations continue, but 
the ear does not register the sound. 

Professor Hardenback has said that no ear can hear 
a sound when the waves run below thirty thousand per 
second—that such sounds, to hear them, would kill a 
person. So we see that hearing is in our mind and not 
in the bell, not in vibration, for there are vibrations 
above and vibrations below those which the ear regis¬ 
ters as sound. 

You may also have an erroneous impression of the 
use of the electrical wire in the telephone. When you 
speak into a telephone mouthpiece so that your voice 
is heard at the other end of the line, you may think 
that the wire carries the sound. This is not so. All 


284 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


the wire does, is to guide vibrations which the voice 
creates in the atmosphere. Without the electrical 
wire guiding these vibrations, which are made by the 
voice creating disturbances in the ether, the vibra¬ 
tions would not be carried to a given point but would 
spread and scatter, shoot up and shoot down, shoot 
right and shoot left; without a concentrated guidance 
of the vibrations which the voice creates, the sound 
would be heard only at a short distance from its 
source. 

Wireless telegraphy has shown us that these vibra¬ 
tions are not dependent wholly upon wire. They are 
ethereal vibrations. You say that “the sun gives 
light;” yet this is governed by the same principle as 
speaking into the telephone receiver. The sun simply 
gives forth energy which produces vibrations in the 
ether, at the rate of four hundred trillions per second, 
creating what is known as light waves. These light 
waves register upon the sense of sight, and we see 
light; but light is in our mind the same as hearing. 
The sound is not in the bell—the sound is in our ear; 
light is not in the ether—light is in our eyes; therefore, 
hearing is a process of the mind and seeing is a pro¬ 
cess of the mind. All is mind. 

Go into a room, pull down the shades, close the 
shutters and you shut out the light vibrations. These 
light vibrations are not allowed to register on the 
retina of the eyes, therefore you do not see the light; 
but the light is still there. So, you see, light is in the 
mind. 

When the number of vibrations increases, the light 
changes in color, each change being caused by shorter 


VIBRATION 


285 


or more rapid vibrations.; so, although we speak of the 
grass as being “green,” or the sky “blue,” or the rose 
“red,” we know that this is true only in our minds. 
The sensations experienced by us, as the result of vibra¬ 
tions of light waves, produce the color effects. When 
these vibrations are reduced below four hundred tril¬ 
lions per second, we no longer experience them as light 
but as the sensation of heat; therefore, heat is in our 
mind. 

If the human race ever overcomes what we errone¬ 
ously call “death” (there is no death—all is life; 
what we term death is only change or “transition” or 
“passing on” of life to other planes), it will be by 
vibration. There are those who believe that Jesus 
overcame death; what we term “physical death,” I 
mean. If this be so, he did it by vibration. 

In 1917, Mr. Bancroft Gherhardi, engineer of the 
American Telephone and Telegraph Company’s New 
York plant, wireless expert, predicted that it would 
not be long before we would talk around the world: a 
man could be in a telephone booth in New York City, 
send his message around the world, and have it re¬ 
ceived by another man in the booth next to him. The 
man speaking in the telephone booth would talk by 
telephone to San Francisco, where his voice would 
leave the guidance of the telephone wire and, by wire¬ 
less leap across the Pacific Ocean and light upon a 
telephone wire in Hongkong. This telephone wire would 
guide the sound across the continents of Asia and Eu¬ 
rope to Paris, where it would again leave the guidance 
of the telephone wire and make another leap this time 
across the Atlantic, coming en rapport with the wire at 


286 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


New York City, which would convey the message back 
to the man in the booth next to the speaker. 

That we can speak around the world has since been 
demonstrated; not, perhaps exactly in this way, but 
we have at Bordeaux, France, a wireless) sending sta¬ 
tion strong enough to send a message around the world. 
This has not yet become practical, because no receiv¬ 
ing station has so far been devised adequately to re¬ 
ceive the message; that it will soon be perfected, we 
have no doubt. 

But your thought will travel many times faster than 
a wireless message can travel; you may think a thought 
and, quicker than wireless, it will pass around the 
globe. 

“Suppose you have the power to make an iron rod 
vibrate with any desired frequency in a dark room. 
At first, when vibrating slowly, its movement will be 
indicated by only one sense, that of touch. As soon as 
the vibrations increase, a low sound will emanate from 
it and it will appeal to two senses. 

“At about 32,000 vibrations to the second the sound 
will be loud and shrill; but at 40,000 vibrations it will 
be silent and the movements of the rod will not be per¬ 
ceived by touch. Its movement will be perceived by 
no ordinary human sense. 

“From this point, up to about 1,500,000 vibrations 
per second, we have no sense that can appreciate any 
effect of the intervening vibrations. After that stage 
is reached, movement is indicated first by the sense of 
temperature and then, when the rod becomes red hot, 
by the sense of sight. At 3,000,000 it sheds violet light. 
Above that it sheds ultra-violet rays and other invisible 


VIBRATION 


287 


radiations, some of which can be perceived by instru¬ 
ments and employed by us. 

“Now it has occurred to me that there must be a 
great deal to be learned about the effect of those vibra¬ 
tions in the great gap where the ordinary human senses 
are unable to hear, see or feel the movement. The 
power to send wireless messages by ether vibrations 
lies in that gap, but the gap is so great that it seems 
there must be much more. You must make machines 
practically to supply new senses, as the wireless instru¬ 
ments do. 

“Can it be said when you think of that great gap, 
that there are not many forms of vibrations that may 
give us results as wonderful as, or even more wonderful 
than, the wireless waves ? It seems to me possible that 
in this gap lie the vibrations which we have assumed 
to be given off by our brains and nerve cells when we 
think. But then, again, they may be higher up, in the 
scale beyond the vibrations that produce the ultra¬ 
violet rays. 

“Do we need a wire to carry these vibrations? Will 
they not pass through the ether without a wire just as 
the wireless waves do? How will they be perceived 
by the recipient ? Will he hear a series of signals or 
will he find that another man’s thoughts have entered 
into his brain? 

“We may indulge in some speculations based on 
what we know of the wireless waves, which, as I have 
said, are all we can recognize of a vast series of vibra¬ 
tions which theoretically must exist. If the thought 
waves are similar to the wireless waves, they must 
pass from the brain and flow endlessly around the 


288 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


world and the universe. The body and the skull and 
other solid obstacles would form no obstruction to their 
passage, as they pass through the ether which sur¬ 
rounds the molecules of every substance, no matter how 
solid and dense. 

‘‘You ask if there would not be constant interfer¬ 
ence and confusion if other people’s thoughts were 
flowing through our brains and setting up thoughts 
in them that did not originate with ourselves? 

“How do you know that other men’s thoughts are 
not interfering with yours now? I have noticed a good 
many phenomena of mind disturbances that I have 
never been able to explain. For instance, there is the 
inspiration or the discouragement that a speaker feels 
in addressing an audience. I have experienced this 
many times in my life and have never been able to 
define exactly the physical causes of it.” 

Again, Dr. Bell believes that every man is sending 
out, from his mind, vibrations of enormous rapidity and 
infinitesimal wave-lengths that pass completely around 
the earth, which would reveal his thoughts if there 
were some way of receiving them or recording them. 

“Many recent scientific discoveries, in my opinion, 
point to a day not far distant perhaps, when men will 
read one another’s thoughts, when thoughts will be 
conveyed directly from brain to brain without inter¬ 
vention of speech, writing, or any of the present known 
methods of communication. 

“It is not unreasonable to look forward to a time 
when we shall see without eyes, hear without ears and 
talk without tongues. 


VIBRATION 


289 


“Briefly, the hypothesis that mind can communi¬ 
cate directly with mind rests on the theory that thought 
or vital force is a form of electrical disturbance, that 
it can be taken up by induction and transmitted to a 
distance either through a wire or simply through the 
all-pervading ether, as in the case of wireless telegraph 
waves. 

“There are many analogies which suggest that 
thought is of the nature of an electrical disturbance. 
A nerve which is of the same substance as the brain 
is an excellent conductor of the electric current. When 
we first passed an electric current through the nerves 
of a dead man we were shocked and amazed to see him 
sit up and move. The electrified nerves produced con¬ 
traction of the muscles very much as in life. 

“The nerves appear to act upon the muscles very 
much as the electric current acts upon an electro-mag- 
net. The current magnetizes a bar of iron placed at 
right angles to it, and the nerves produce, through the 
intangible current of vital force that flows through 
them, contraction of the muscular fibers that are ar¬ 
ranged at right angles to them. 

“It would be possible to cite many reasons why 
thought and vital force may be regarded as of the same 
nature as electricity. The electric current is held to 
be a wave motion of the ether, the hypothetical sub¬ 
stance that fills all space and pervades all substances. 
We believe that there must be ether because without 
it the electric current could not pass through a vacuum, 
or sunlight through space. It is reasonable to believe 
that only a wave motion of a similar character can 
produce the phenomena of thought and vital force. We 


290 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


may assume that the brain cells act as a battery and 
that the current produced flows along the nerves. 

“But does it end there? Does it not pass out of 
the body in waves which flow round the world unper¬ 
ceived by our senses, just as the wireless waves passed 
unperceived before Hertz and others discovered their 
existence?”—Alexander Graham' Bell. 

We are told that if we were to throw a stone in the 
middle of the ocean, this stone would create ripples 
which would continue forever. Scientists tell us that 
each time we wave our hand, we create, so to speak, 
ripples in the universal ether which likewise never 
stop. This is also true of the voice: it starts electrical 
vibrations which never, never, stop, which travel on and 
on forever and ever. 

On the same principle thought vibrations which we 
create in the universal mind continue to travel until 
they produce a resonance in some person’s mind in 
tune with our own. These vibrations will, therefore, 
be registered in the mind of the mental receiving sta¬ 
tion attuned to our own. 

A wireless message is sent by a sending station at¬ 
tuned to a certain key. Vibrations, created by the 
wireless sending station, travel through space until 
they come en rapport with another instrument of the 
same key, where the message is received. Man’s 
thoughts travel in identically the same way. When a 
man thinks, he creates disturbances in the universal 
ether. These disturbances travel the same as wireless 
vibrations, only faster, until the vibrations are re¬ 
ceived by another mind of the same “key.” 


VIBRATION 


291 


This is the secret of your success or failure, of your 
health or sickness; for all of us are sending stations and 
receiving station for thoughts. If we are strong and 
positive, we receive the strong and positive thought cur¬ 
rents generated by strong and positive minds. If we are 
weak and negative, we become receiving stations for weak 
and negative thought currents. If we, perchance, are 
negative but withal in good health, we may ward off, 
for a time, any of the thought currents which would 
bring us failure, disaster, disappointment, sorrow and 
ill-health; but should our physical vitality be lowered 
or our minds disturbed by worry or anxiety, these 
negative thoughts may register in our mental receiving 
station, creating all sorts of financial or domestic 
trouble, disappointments and ill-health. 

We are not only mental receiving stations for 
thoughts but we are mental receiving stations for 
sounds. There are some people who have been nega¬ 
tive receiving stations for all sorts of noises, for sounds 
which have created ill-health; and while they live in a 
neighborhood where these sounds are continuously 
heard, they never can become well. All of the mental 
practitioners and medical specialists in the world can¬ 
not make them well until they change their environ¬ 
ment. 

Many of us are receiving stations for vibrations 
which cause business inefficiency, domestic inharmony 
and physical distress, because our minds are disturbed 
by the shrill call of the newsboys, the rattle of street 
cars, the grating of wheels, the honk of automobiles, 
the rumble of wagons. These disturbing vibrations 
register in our minds and, in turn, are reflected through 


292 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


the nervous system until we become physically unfit; 
and, while we continue to live where these noisies reg¬ 
ister within the radius of our mental receiving stations, 
we never can become well. 

Change our neighborhood, change our location, and 
we change our physical as well as our mental condi¬ 
tion. 

Not only will discordant sounds and inharmonious 
surroundings bring us ill-health, but it will lower our 
efficiency. A man may not be succeeding and may 
wonder why; he may be losing his grip, or he may have 
lost his pep and is not able to account for it. It may 
be because he is living where discordant noises register 
within his consciousness, or he may be living in inhar¬ 
monious conditions at home or at the office, where he 
has become a receiving station for discordant sounds 
and thoughts. These, in turn, have reacted upon his 
consciousness, and inefficiency follows. 

Many a person is ill and will remain ill, and many 
a person has lost his efficiency and will never find it, 
until he changes neighborhoods or gets away from in¬ 
harmonious mental conditions. 

Others cannot endure inharmony in the home; dis¬ 
cord—jealousy, envy, fear, distrust, nagging, twitting 
—prevents many a person from retaining or regaining 
his health and from being successful. Most of us, al¬ 
though we do not know it today, are having our health 
undermined and our efficiency lessened because of such 
inharmonious surroundings. Change the surroundings 
and you change your life. Change the rate of vibra¬ 
tion and you change your life. Raise the rate of your 
vibrations and you will have health, success, prosperity. 


VIBRATION 


293 


Therefore, if we want to change our conditions, we 
should raise our rate of vibration. 

Every mental action is a vibration. Vibration has 
its effect upon the human system. Every given vibra¬ 
tion immediately modifies every atom in the body: 
every cell is affected and an entire chemical change 
takes place by a change of our vibration. 

We may, unconsciously, have become receiving stations 
for conditions around us, which, in turn, brings us all 
kinds of ill-health and inefficiency. 

I was called in to see a patient who had been ill for 
many years. She had had many medical specialists 
examine her, and for nine or ten years had been a stu¬ 
dent of mental science. The day before I called upon 
her, another specialist had been to see her and had left 
her with the “glad tidings” (?) that “nothing could 
be done for her.” 

As elsewhere stated, every case of sickness is really 
a matter of a “kink” in the mind. We do not deny 
that a man has pain; that the physical organism is out 
of harmony and racked by agony; but the science of 
it is, that this is a matter of mind: by changing the 
rate of our mind’s vibration, we change our physical 
condition. 

To get speedy results from mental healing, the wise 
practitioner should put his finger upon the “kink,” 
and once this is removed, the patient becomes well. 
When I am called to a patient that has been given up 
by specialists (for we usually get the ones who have 
“no hope”), I try to learn everything I can about the 
home surroundings and other conditions—both finan¬ 
cial and spiritual. 


294 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


Before I went to see this particular woman, I had a 
conversation with her husband. Before I ever saw her, 
I knew what the trouble was. When I entered the 
room, my conviction was confirmed—I knew just where 
the trouble was in that home. 

This woman had the features of a godly Christian 
saint and she talked in terms which confirmed this. 
She said she did not see why she could not be well— 
she believed in mental healing and had been a student 
of it for many years. In questioning her, as is my cus¬ 
tom, I finally, very delicately, approached what I con¬ 
sidered (and what was, later, proved to be) the cause 
of the difficulty, the “kink in her mind.” 

She had told me that she had a wonderfully fine hus¬ 
band—kind and gracious to her—who provided well 
and did for her everything that a good husband could 
do, but she had not told me all and I knew she had not. 
I finally drew her out so that she answered her own 
question. Her husband had fallen into a bad habit 
and this had worried the poor woman, for she had 
been raised in an orthodox church and believed that, 
if this habit were continued, her husband would burn 
in hell forever. 

She had been so happy with her loved one on earth 
that to think of being separated from him in heaven 
was intolerable. She believed that this habit, unless 
corrected, meant his eternal damnation. Orthodoxy 
had taught her that God is a most tyrannical, ferocious 
and murderous Being: Orthodoxy had instilled into 
her consciousness the belief that God damned some 
people and saved others; and to believe that her hus- 


VIBRATION 


295 


band would be eternally damned and she saved, was 
unbearable. 

Orthodoxy had also taught this woman other mis¬ 
conceptions of Deity. It had taught her that God some¬ 
times punishes us for other people’s wrong doings. She 
told me, in time, after careful questioning, that she be¬ 
lieved God was punishing her so that her husband 
might be saved; that her husband might see the agony 
and the suffering of his wife, caused by his bad habit. 
God was punishing her with torturing sickness, to save 
her husband. How absurd! What depravity of 
minds orthodoxy has produced! Just to think that 
God would punish a godly church woman because of 
minds orthodoxy has produced! Of course, if we think 
He does, it becomes a reality in our life as it had to 
this woman; wrong thinking made it so—just as right 
thinking corrected it. Wrong thinking brings inhar¬ 
mony; right thinking, joy, abundance, health and pros¬ 
perity. This woman was the victim of wrong think¬ 
ing, inspired by orthodoxy. 

I told her that God did not work that way—that God 
would not punish her “for the sake of her husband;” 
that I never saw a man either good enough or bad 
enough whom God would go to such an extremity to 
save—by torturing some innocent, God-fearing woman. 

Her eyes brightened—the mind became clear—and 
she said, “Do you think so?” And I said, “Yes, I 
know it.” I also said that if she would think as I told 
her to think, she would save not only herself, but her 
husband as well. Within two days this woman was 
walking; within a short time she was well, and more 


296 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


than that, not only had she been made well, but the 
husband, likewise, had been saved. The “kink” had 
been taken out of her mind, and what medical special¬ 
ists were unable to accomplish and mental healers had 
failed to achieve, because they were not able to put 
their finger upon the “kink,” the right prognosis and 
strong counter-suggestion had effected. 

The woman became well when she changed her mind; 
she changed her rate of vibration and she changed her 
condition. Change the rate of your vibration, and you 
change your life. 

We are receiving stations for either positive or nega¬ 
tive mental wireless currents. We should all be re¬ 
ceiving and sending stations of the positive, instead of 
the negative, and all of us can be. 

Not only are we, sometimes unconsciously, receiving 
stations for negative thought waves, but we are also 
receiving stations for wrong vibrations of color. Col¬ 
ors have a great deal to do with our temperament and 
physical soundness. All shades of colors affect our 
health more or less, and this is due to the different 
rates of vibration of wfiiich these colors are the result. 
As we have already stated, without vibration there 
would be no color. 

Nerve specialists often find that certain colors in 
homes of patients start vibrations which so antagonize 
the patient that the colors neutralize or render inef¬ 
fective their treatment of the sick prson. It may not 
always be true, but in many cases where the offensive 
colorings, especially when they are bright or deep 
reds, are changed to sky blue or apple green, the pa¬ 
tient’s recovery is rapid. 


VIBRATION 


297 


I have a friend who treated a woman and healed her 
from a habit which she had formed. She went home 
and it wasn’t very long until she reverted. 

When she came back for further treatment, the 
psychologist, by interrogation, found out that this 
woman was living in a home where she spent much of 
her time in her “red room;” the rug was red, the walls 
matched in red, the shades and draperies all carried 
out the color scheme of red. The reflection of this red 
vibration affected the patient, and in order to remain 
healed, she had to change her mode of living so as not 
to come in contact with that “red room.” 

We are most careful now in regard to how light is 
reflected in schoolrooms and in choosing the color of 
our walls. A pale green seems to be the most soothing 
to the greater number of people. 

The effect of color upon some animals is very appar¬ 
ent. Go into the barnyard with a red dress on and 
see what the turkey gobbler will want to do to you; 
go into a field where there is a bull and wave a red 
banner, and see what the bull will try to do to you— 
and he’ll do it, too, if you don’t get out of his way. 
The red color enrages the turkey gobbler and the bull 
and creates within the consciousness of these animals 
the desire to fight to the extent of blood and gore. The 
vibration of the color upon the consciousness of the 
animals turns the trick. Man has enough of the ani¬ 
mal in him to be affected similarly in different degrees 
by divers colors. 

As stated in Chapter XXIV, “Smile! Smile! Smile!” 
in this book, you may be affected by the color of your 
dress as well as by its fashion. When you are seeking 


298 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


mental healing, whether it be for success and pros¬ 
perity or for health, it is wise to see that you are not 
surrounded by discordant sounds and noises, inhar¬ 
monious associations, or irritating colors. 

I know a husband and wife who have, in the past, 
had a few domestic difficulties. They discovered a 
most happy way to prevent these ripples which might 
have upset their matrimonial skiff. The differences be¬ 
gan to increase in number and length of time, so they 
struck upon this happy solution: when they saw they 
were reaching a point of disagreement, each one went 
into a separate room and wrote on a piece of paper 
what he or she thought about the other, and then they 
handed these papers to each other. It was not long be¬ 
fore domestic tranquility reigned. When we think there 
is a reason for dissension, if we do not talk about it, the 
difference takes wings and flies away. Remove condi¬ 
tions and you raise your rate of vibrations. Raise your 
rate of vibrations and you change your conditions. 

Every individual makes his world by his thoughts. 
The vibrations he starts determine what sort of a 
world it shall be. There may be eight or ten children 
in a family and each one of these children may be 
as different from the other in temperament as the east 
is from the west. This is because the individual’s 
thoughts, actions, motives and emotions connect him 
with different affinity currents. One child of the fam¬ 
ily may move in the current of reality, service, love, 
kindness, helpfulness; while the other may connect 
himself, by his own thinking, with the vilest kind of 
currents. Their thinking connects them with other 
minds on the same plane. 


VIBRATION 


299 


One difficulty of the wireless operator is to prevent 
messages not intended for him from reaching his 
“antennas.” To prevent this, both the wireless send¬ 
ing station and the wireless receiving stations are fre¬ 
quently tested and put in tune. They must be kept 
in the same key, otherwise messages not intended for 
them may be deflected, or messages intended for them 
lost, by their not being in perfect harmony. 

Man is like the wireless operator. Man is subject 
to miscellaneous wrong thought currents if his mind is 
not in tune with the Infinite, or if he is not keyed up to 
higher vibrations than those of negation. 

A man who thinks courageous thoughts sends these 
courageous thought waves through the universal ether 
until they lodge in the consciousness of some one who 
is tuned to the same courageous key. Think a strong 
thought, a courageous thought, a prosperity thought, 
and these thoughts will be received by some one who 
is strong, courageous and prosperous. 

It is just as easy to think in terms of abundance 
as to think in terms of poverty. If we think poverty 
thoughts we become the sending and receiving stations 
for poverty thoughts. We send out a “poverty” men¬ 
tal wireless and it reaches the consciousness of some 
poverty-stricken “receiver.” We get what we think. 
It is just as easy to think in terms of abundance, opu¬ 
lence and prosperity as it is to think in terms of lack, 
limitation and poverty. 

If a man will raise hist rate of vibration by faith 
currents or hope currents, these vibrations go through 
the universal mind and lodge in the consciousness of 


300 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


people who are keyed to the same tune. Whatever you 
think is sometime, somewhere, received by a person who 
is tuned to your thought key. 

If a man is out of work and he thinks thoughts 
of success, prosperity, harmony, position and growth, 
just as surely as his thoughts are things—as Shake¬ 
speare says—someone will receive his vibrations of suc¬ 
cess, prosperity, harmony, position and growth. 

If we are going to be timid, selfish, penurious and 
picayunish in our thinking, these thought waves which 
we have started in the universal ether will go forth until 
they come to a mental receiving station of the same cali¬ 
ber. “Birds of a feather flock together/’ and minds of 
like thinking are attracted one to the other. 

If you need money, all you have to do is to send up 
your vibrations to a strong, courageous receiving sta¬ 
tion, and someone who can meet your needs will be at¬ 
tracted to you or you to him. 

Suppose someone who has lost all faith in himself and 
who has no ambition left, who thinks that luck is against 
him and that misfortune is dogging his tracks, were to 
go to a banker with an attitude of a whipped cur with 
his tail between his legs, and, with half-hearted expres¬ 
sion, ask the banker for a loan of five hundred dollars. 
Why, the banker wouldn’t let him have five hundred 
cents. But let that same man change his attitude and 
his mind, and go to that same banker with a firm step, 
determined look, steadfast eye and courageous demeanor, 
and see what the banker will do. If there is any place 
in the world to try your knowledge of vibrating to get 
results, especially in borrowing money, it is trying to 


VIBRATION 


301 


vibrate money out of a banker; but it can be done. Even 
the banker will catch your vibrations if you know how 
to vibrate him psychologically. 

The great desideratum is to be able to raise our rate 
of vibration and thus prevent ourselves from being the 
recipients of weak, negative and unsuccessful thought 
currents. By thinking strong thoughts, by thinking 
courageous thoughts, by thinking faith thoughts, by 
thinking complete health thoughts, we raise the rate of 
our vibrations so that we do not “catch'’ the negative 
thought currents of lack, limitation, ill-health, inhar¬ 
mony and discord. We become a strong, powerful send¬ 
ing station which will not attract any deflected negative 
mental wirelessi messages, but which will attract out of 
the universal ether to our consciousness messages from 
those keyed to our strength, power, health and courage; 
and when we have thus raised our rate of vibration, we 
have changed our world. It will then mean only a mat¬ 
ter of time for the manifestation of health, prosperity, 
abundance, love, happiness and peace. 

If we are going to have the maximum amount of suc¬ 
cess. health and happiness we are not going to plug our 
ears with wax and be deaf to the law of vibration. 


302 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


CHAPTER XIV 


VISUALIZATION—IMAGINATION 


Imagination in Visualization—Making Your Dreams 
Come True 

Visualization is very commonly misunderstood. Vis¬ 
ualization is a process of imagination, but it is not only 
that. It is the faculty of imagination employed in com¬ 
pleting and perfecting the pattern or plan of our life’s 
dreams, our “castles in Spain.” 

Visualization is the seeing, “imagining,” portraying, 
of our desires and hopes, not with the conscious, but 
with the subconscious mind and vision. It may be said 
to be “imagination developed to the de'gree of seeing 
with the subconscious mind.” 

But visualization does not stop at imagination. To 
“visualize” means first to “see” the pattern of our 
ambition or desire in the subconscious mind, and then 
to weave the threads so as to bring out, develop and 
complete the design. 

The pattern is to the subconscious mind what the 
blue-print is to the architect. Imagination supplies the 
plan, the “blue-print” of our life’s ambition, and vis¬ 
ualization concentrates upon this blue-print, until the 
structure is completed. 

Visualization, then, is more than imagination. It 
involves also the process of “fixing” or perpetuating 
the vision. By the act of visualizing we sink, as it were. 





VISUALIZATION—IMAGINATION 


303 


deep into the subconscious mind the image or picture 
of our heart ’s desire. When we thus fix our vision and 
sink our pattern into the subconscious mind, we are 
applying the law of visualization. 

Therefore, to cultivate the faculty of visualization and 
apply its laws, one needs first of all to have an under¬ 
standing of the faculty of imagination. In order to 
be a good visualizer, one must have a good, that is, an 
active, well-developed and well-trained imagination 
which will naturally and automatically weave, in the 
recesses of the subconscious mind, the threads of oppor¬ 
tunity into the perfection of the pattern visualized. 

Our imagination may be either constructive or de¬ 
structive, according to its development and guidance; 
but the most destructive imagination may, if properly 
trained and cultivated, become a source of great achieve¬ 
ment, of wealth and happiness. 

There are people who have progressed, and realized 
their dreams, by making use of visualization and imagi¬ 
nation after every other method had failed. Therefore 
do not despair, but set to work to train and develop 
these great powers. 

You may have what is called “a flighty imagination.’’ 
Only turn it into the right channel, and by applying 
the law of visualization it will lead you to the realization 
of your fondest hopes. 

If you are a 4 ‘dreamer,” if your imagination roams 
the verdant fields of fancy until you are accused of 
prevarication by those who do not understand that you 
are exercising a strong and vigorous “bucking broncho” 


304 


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—bring it under the bridle of visualization and make 
of yourself a good visualizer. 

A few years ago a wealthy citizen of Brooklyn, al¬ 
though he had not been bitten by a dog, thought he dis¬ 
covered in himself the symptoms of hydrophobia. He 
was so sure of his own diagnosis that he went to a phy¬ 
sician, who likewise determined that he was suffering 
from hydrophobia and advised him if he had any ar¬ 
rangements to make before dying, to get them in shape, 
as he had but twenty-four hours to live. The wealthy 
business man said that he was not afraid to die, retired 
to his private office, made the necessary arrangements 
and his last will and testament, and within the allotted 
time, was dead. This made a good newspaper story. 
The newspapers played it up, and an epidemic of hydro¬ 
phobia started in Brooklyn and grew until the Pasteur 
Institute and city hospitals were overrun with patients 
who imagined that they had hydrophobia. 

You can think yourself ill or you can think yourself 
well if you understand how to use the law, just as you 
can think yourself in poverty or you can think yourself 
in abundance. 

In a newspaper I read not long ago of a man who, 
while talking with his sick son, was stung by a bee, and 
within twenty minutes after being stung by the bee 
the man was dead. Imagination did it, not the bee¬ 
sting. If you have a good imagination you have a won¬ 
derful foundation for visualization. It is the greatest 
workshop in existence, and by developing the imagina¬ 
tion, you can bring either weal or woe into your life. 


VISUALIZATION—IMAGINATION 


305 


A highly organized imagination may bring about 
your early death or it may bring your dreams into 
realization. 

A young lady, while working around the house, 
pricked her breast with a knife. She did not even know 
the little accident had happened, and continued about 
her work as usual. At the table that evening, her 
mother, sitting opposite to her, saw a speck of blood, no 
larger than half the end of your little finger, on the 
waist of her daughter, and in her surprise said, with a 
frightened expression: “Why! what is that, blood V’ 
The daughter looked at the blood, sprang to her feet, 
gave a shrill cry, and died. 

The blood did not kill the girl. The prick of the 
knife did not cause her demise, but imagination, aroused 
and augmented by the startled cry of her mother, 
brought about instant death. 

Verily, if you have a sensitive imagination, you hold 
in the balance not only penury and fortune, but life 
and death. 

Before hazing came to be tabooed in our leading edu¬ 
cational institutions, there were many, many instances 
of death caused by an easily stimulated imagination be¬ 
ing excited by the pranks of fellow students. One fresh¬ 
man, in a medical college was taken into a room, blind¬ 
folded, securely tied, and laid upon an operating table. 
The student practical jokers wanted to make the hazing 
as emphatic as possible and whispered one to the other, 
audibly so that the blindfolded student could hear, that 
they were going to operate on him. 


306 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


One suggested making an incision in his throat. This 
was agreed upon, and after some moments of pause 
which added to the terror of the unfortunate freshman, 
one student crept up behind him and ran an icicle over 
his throat as if making an incision. Another student 
at the same time dropped warm water on the throat, 
giving the sensation of the oozing of warm blood. This 
was so real to the affrighted student that he did not 
rally and they took him from the table a corpse. Imag¬ 
ination did it! 

The icicle did not kill the student, the warm water 
could not do so. It was the power of thought—imagina¬ 
tion. The same imagination, if rightly put to work, 
will perform wonders, bring dreams into realization and 
a life’s ambition into manifestation. 

A member of the royal family of Prance had had diffi¬ 
culties with a friend which led to alienation of their 
friendship and, later, to the imprisonment of the one¬ 
time bosom friend. When the duke thought his friend 
had been sufficiently punished, he decided to give him 
his liberty; but before doing so he wanted to give one 
last demonstration of his civil power and authority. 
He, therefore, had a warden of the prison read a make- 
believe death warrant to the incarcerated man, setting 
the time of his execution. At the appointed hour the 
prisoner, after having been blindfolded, was led out to 
the guillotine and his head was placed upon the block. 
At this stage of the practical joke his “friendly enemy” 
dashed a bucketful of cold water into his face, after 
which he immediately pulled the bandage from his 
friend’s eyes—to find that he was dead. 


VISUALIZATION—IMAGINATION 307 

The water did not kill the man. Imagination did it. 
And this imagination, if properly directed, controlled 
and cultivated, will accomplish the things which you 
desire. 

Have you a child in your home with an active imag¬ 
ination? Never reprimand the child for telling stories 
which, to you, seem to be fancy or prevarication. If you 
have a child who tells you the wonderful things he sees 
and hears in imagination, if he relates a wonderful story 
someone has told him when you know that no one has 
ever mentioned such stories to him—don’t tell your 
child to desist; or that it is “naughty to tell stories 
or that “he is lying,” for the child has merely allowed 
his imagination to take wings, and having no one else 
to whom to confide its soarings, has revealed to you, un¬ 
consciously, his exceptional powers of imagination 
which, if wisely trained, will be to him a means of 
making his life successful. 

If your child says he heard eighteen black cats fight¬ 
ing on the back fence, don’t scold the child and say he 
“must not exaggerate;” “tell stories;” “fib,” or “lie ;” 
for the child’s imagination probably did hear what to 
it was the noise of eighteen cats. I have been awak¬ 
ened in the middle of the night from a sound sleep by 
two stray cats having an unfriendly argument in the 
back yard and I did not consider that my imagination 
ran riot when I thought the noise was equal to that of 
forty black cats. 

If your child has an imagination that makes a mos¬ 
quito big enough to swallow an elephant, you may have 
a gpnius in your home who should not be punished for 


308 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


its imagination, but guided in the use of this wonderful 
talent so that your child may some day become a famous 
novelist, actor, inventor, artist or architect. 

In the early days of Wichita, one of the characters 
of the city was a lawyer—big paunched, big voiced, big 
necked, big everything physically. He was given to 
making political speeches and had a nasty way of be¬ 
rating his opponents with vitriolic criticism. One night, 
while he was haranguing in the street, one of the men 
whom he had attacked before became excited, drew a 
knife and, evidently, stabbed him in the back. He fell 
to the street, writhing in pain and shouting, “I am 
killed, I am killed. ” He was hustled to a nearby pool 
hall where he was laid upon a pool table and the crowd 
gathered around to see him die. 

Newspaper reporters, quick on the scent of “news,” 
rushed to the scene, ready to write up a most thrilling 
story about the murder and death of the political orator. 
As the representatives of the press drew near, the 
wounded man raised upon his elbow and shouted with 
all the stentoriousness of his bellowing voice: “Come 
near, you hell hounds of the press, and see how a 
Roo-o-o-man can die!” 

At this time a physician reached the side of the 
injured man, turned him over, tore off his clothing and 
examined the wound on his back, and lo! There was 
only a scratch about an inch long, no deeper than the 
prick of a pin. 

Many years ago when I was preaching on psychology, 
I thought I would carry out a little experiment of my 
own to test the power of imagination. I told my con- 


VISUALIZATION—IMAGINATION 


309 


gregation that I had a vial of peppermint and, as I 
dropped the contents of the vial, I requested that any¬ 
one detecting the odor of the peppermint would raise 
the hand. The wife of one of the richest men in town 
raised her hand immediately; then up went another 
hand and then another and another. Then I said: 
“Now I have, by the power of imagination, made you 
think that you smelled peppermint, whereas, it was clear 
water that I had poured from the vial.” Showing the 
power of the imagination. 

The golden thread of accomplishment will run through 
the whole web of your life if you let imagination— 
visualization—be the weaver. We are now going to 
put this great wealth bringer—imagination—to work 
for us via the power of visualization. 

The right stimulus for brain work is a well-directed 
imagination. You have to see a big chance ahead be¬ 
fore you can do your best work here and now. The 
way to keep your brain on edge is to sharpen it on 
the whetstone of difficulty. Then use it to carve out 
your dreams. Without an inspiring dream, a high pur¬ 
pose and a great goal, your life will never rise above 
the tide line of mediocrity. 

Imagination will bring realization of your dream, 
fulfillment of your purpose, and manifestation of your 
goal. By all means use your imagination, nurture it, 
cultivate it, develop it, and strengthen it. The way to 
do that is to practice visualization. 

In the wonderful mental galleries of imagination and 
visualization the mind works out its greatest destiny. 

Take the great inventor, Tesla. When he contem- 


310 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


plates the invention of a new machine, he thinks about 
it, dreams about it, 4 ‘sees” the machine complete and 
perfect in every particular. He visualizes the inven¬ 
tion, completed, in the subconscious mind. Then, and 
not until then, does he begin to construct it. 

This power of visualization is one of the strongest 
aids and helpers we have. I think I have made it plain 
to you, but let me illustrate: 

I have a friend from Denver who began visualizing 
a wonderful home, a home where he was going to enter¬ 
tain celebrities of the world. He had located the site 
on which he intended to build this home, and he began 
to picture what the home would be like. He had the 
plans completely visualized in his subconscious mind, 
and the blue-prints were prepared. This was in 1885. 
In 1892, the bank in which my friend was a large share¬ 
holder closed its doors and all his money was swept 
away; so he put the blue-prints away and thought that 
his home was a long distance off. But this is what had 
happened: he had sunk into the subconscious mind the 
picture of the home he wanted, and by the law of vis¬ 
ualization the home was prepared for him. 

He found himself, in 1908, twenty-three years after¬ 
ward, in London; and with plenty of resources he began 
looking around for a suitable home. Someone told him 
that Mr. Pears, of the Pears’ Soap Company, had a 
house to sell. Mr. Pears had built a house years ago, 
about the time my friend was visualizing his home. Mr. 
Pears did not know what kind of a home he wanted, 
therefore he had employed an architect to go ahead and 
follow out his own inclinations. 


VISUALIZATION—IMAGINATION 


311 


When my friend was ushered into the house of Mr. 
Pears, he said, “Why! This is familiar!” He had 
entered a room, identical to the one he had planned and 
had drawn on a blue-print many years before. This 
was also true to the next room. The entire house was 
an exact replica of the one he had visualized, only 
larger. (And by the way, when the war came on the 
government confiscated this property and my friend 
realized a hundred thousand dollars more for it than 
he had paid. I want you to realize that when you 
“dream big,” the result of the dream you are visual¬ 
izing will be big.) 

That architect, in search of ideas, by the law of vibra¬ 
tion, had drawn from my friend’s visualization the 
plans for the house. 

Now, when you understand that your visualization 
will build anything you want to build, you are going to 
learn to visualize big things, and you will get them— 
absolutely! You may not get them tomorrow; but if 
you begin to visualize tonight and you send out into the 
subconscious universal mind the picture of your dream, 
it will come true. 

Visualize happiness in your home. You want a wife, 
a husband, a home—utilize the law of visualization and 
you will get them. In fact, this is the only safe and 
sure way to guide your life and (I mean this in all sin¬ 
cerity) if you want to know whether you are marrying 
the right man or the right woman, as the case may be, 
if you have been guided by the law of visualization in 
your choice, you will have made no mistake. 


312 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


Here is the case of a woman in California. Her hus¬ 
band died, leaving her with three small children to sup¬ 
port. She had no means of supporting them, so she got 
the law of visualization working for her and spent 
twenty minutes a day visualizing a companion who 
would love both her and the children; then, with her 
mind relaxed, she began visualizing someone who was 
going to make her happy. She saw the companion sit¬ 
ting opposite her at the dining-room table; she saw the 
dining-room—in fact, the entire house she was to share 
with him. 

She did not have in mind any particular man; that is, 
not any man she had seen, but just “some man;” be¬ 
cause, if she had visualized one particular man, she 
would have limited her scope of selection. (Don’t vis¬ 
ualize great big men—you don’t know how much good 
there is in a little fellow. A woman who said she would 
never marry a man who smoked, swore or drank, mar¬ 
ried a man who did all three and was glad to get him.) 
So, this woman sent out into the subconscious mind of 
the universe the visualization of ‘ ‘ someone to love her. ’ ’ 
Then she imagined him in this picture: large grounds, 
lovely dining-room, conservatory, garden, with steps 
leading from the conservatory into the garden. Not 
many months afterwards, she met a man and within 
twenty-four hours they were married. This was in 
California. They went to Virginia, and on arriving at 
the home of her husband, she exclaimed: “Why this is 
the identical place I had visualized.” 

Bright paths unfold themselves, all carpeted with 
flowers, to the one who has mastered visualization. 


VISUALIZATION—IMAGINATION 


313 


The woman went from the dining-room into the con¬ 
servatory, and from the conservatory down the steps and 
out into the garden. It was the very house which she 
had visualized! 

In her visualizing she had said: “Why not have a 
beautiful home? Why not visualize something grand?” 
She had done this, and she got what she visualized. It 
is just as easy to visualize something beautiful, grand 
and elaborate, as it is to visualize something small and 
insignificant. 

By the law of visualization and attraction, this woman 
had, within a short time, attracted to her a man who, 
like herself, needed companionship. 

There is, this moment, some one in the world for you 
if you are lonely. Visualization will soon attract this 
one to your side. 

When this woman began visualizing, she started 
thought currents traveling through the universal ether, 
and these thought currents traveled until they came to 
a mental receiving station keyed to her own. There was 
a man in Virginia at the same time who, likewise, needed 
a companion. He was in tune, en rapport with her. As 
she visualized, she drew from his mind the picture of 
the house in which he was living and, by the law of 
attraction, drew him to herself. 

It was the same here as in the case of the Denver man 
who was visualizing, and the architect in London who 
was building Mr. Pears’ house. The architect had had 
orders to build any house he wanted. The minds of the 
two men were en rapport. Although the American was 
across the ocean and half way across another continent, 


314 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


the mind of the other was a suitable receiving station 
for the strong thought currents which the Denver man 
was generating. He easily drew from the latter’s mind 
the picture of the house the American was visualizing. 

That the subconscious mind is one and the same mind, 
as was explained in a previous chapter, is proven by 
numerous instances where two or more persons, living 
in different cities and even countries, have thought and 
written, at about the same time, scientific treatises or 
other articles so nearly alike that in some cases it 
has led to legal procedure on the charge of plagiarism. 
The secret is unveiled to those who know the laws of 
vibration and visualization. 

There was an editor in the middle west who was un¬ 
able to think of anything to write, and as the time drew 
near for his paper to go to press, he resorted to stimu¬ 
lants. But still his mind was inactive. Then, all of a 
sudden, he began to write; and he reeled off an edi¬ 
torial which was on the press in a very short time. 
Three days afterwards, a friend of his came into his 
office with two papers in his hand: one was a New York 
paper (the “Sun,” I think) and the other was his own. 
His friend came in to tell him confidentially what he 
thought of him. He had always considered the editor 
an honest, upright and straightforward man and had 
never dreamed that he was a mental thief. He put the 
two papers side by side and showed his friend, the 
editor, the production of what he called plagiarism and 
accused him of having copied from the New York paper 
the editorial which he had written. 


VISUALIZATION—IMAGINATION 


315 


The editor was dazed; he could hardly believe his 
eyes when he read in the New York paper the identical 
article. 

What was this? How did it happen? Vibration via 
visualization. The western editor, when in the dilemma 
of not knowing what to write, had been a suitable re¬ 
ceiving station for the strong editorial vibrations which 
the New York editor had set in motion, and so had re¬ 
produced, unconsciously, almost word for word, the 
editorial which the eastern editor had written. lie had 
caught the New York editor’s vibrations. 

The law of visualization rings as clear and is as cer¬ 
tain as though it pealed from Sinai and wrote itself on 
tablets of stone. 

Here is an instance of a young lady in Chicago who 
heard a psychology teacher say something about visual¬ 
izing. The teacher had suggested: “Why not visualize 
a trip to Europe?” So the girl began to visualize six 
hundred dollars, the amount necessary to cover the 
expenses of such a trip. This young lady was a stenog¬ 
rapher and she immediately began to work better (when 
we begin to have faith in ourselves, that is the time we 
begin to work harder) and soon had one hundred dollars 
saved. 

One day she said to the teacher: “My! This law of 
visualization certainly works. I am going to Europe 
and will leave the first of May.” But she did not go. 
She was visualizing money, and she soon had the six 
hundred dollars saved and in the bank, but the bank 
closed, and the girl went back to the teacher and said, 
“This law of visualization is no good.” The teacher 


316 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


said, ‘'You are visualizing money. Now, let me tell 
you how to visualize your trip to Europe. Get a map 
and visualize yourself going to Europe. Never mind 
where the ticket comes from; get money out of your 
mind. ’’ 

When we begin to think about money we are visual¬ 
izing the wrong way, because there is more than one 
way to take a trip to Europe. The girl got a map and 
imagined she was in Paris, then cruising on the Mediter¬ 
ranean, then traveling through Italy. She was sending 
out into the universal mind the call “going to Europe.” 
One day, along came a man who gave her some dictation, 
and after looking into her eyes he forgot to dictate, for 
he saw there the woman he had been searching for all 
his life. In a short time he proposed and the girl ac¬ 
cepted. On her honeymoon trip she went to Europe 
with her husband. By the right kind of visualizing, 
this girl not only got her trip to Europe, but a husband 
thrown into the bargain. 

This is the one thing to remember: if you do not have 
your dreams realized tomorrow, you are not to give up 
and become disappointed and quit. Let the law work— 
do not block it—and then let circumstances and the 
law take care of the rest. 

I see people all over the country who have a wrong 
idea of visualization. They have heard a lecture on 
psychology somewhere, and they get the thought into 
their consciousness that all they have to do is to stand 
on a curbstone, concentrate upon an automobile, visual¬ 
ize a limousine, and within ten minutes, as though by the 
magic wand of Cinderella’s fairy godmother, the 


VISUALIZATION—IMAGINATION 


317 


limousine will be delivered at the curbstone, together 
with a footman tailored in the latest fashion and enough 
gasoline in the tank to run for ten years. 

Visualization does not work that way always. Con¬ 
centration does not always bring us a fortune over night. 
So many people have a mistaken idea that all they have 
to do is to sit down, fold their hands, concentrate or 
visualize for a fortune, and the next wind that blows 
will waft a million new one-dollar bills into their lap. 

The law of visualization works no magic Cinderella 
stuff. Concentration and visualization, without the 
right kind of living effort, work and application, will 
drop no fortune into any one's lap. With a strong, in¬ 
centive, concentration and visualization (once we begin 
to understand that abundance of love and abundance of 
money and of everything we desire is for us, if we con¬ 
centrate and visualize properly) make each individual 
put forth his or her best efforts to help bring about the 
realization of the object of concentration and visualiza¬ 
tion. 

When we feel and know that there is a chance for us, 
the same as for any one else, we will, if we are good 
operators of the law of psychology, work just that much 
harder, and our dreams will come true through visual¬ 
ization and concentration enforced by efficiency and 
work. Visualization and concentration very often lead 
us to a better position or open the way for more work 
at better pay; but, if we are going to fall down on the 
job after it has been given to us, we are missing the 
opportunity which visualization has brought into our 
lives. 


318 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


Visualization will begin today to attract riches to 
you by your efforts and your work, but it may take the 
conjunction of visualizing and effort and work a num¬ 
ber of years before the manifestation of your visualiza¬ 
tion is realized. We should never, therefore, be dis¬ 
couraged if we do not get the automobile the minute 
after we concentrate for it, or if we do not get our 
fortune the day after we have visualized it. It is “up 
to” ourselves, by effort and work to help the law of 
visualization to help us. 

When man learns that the power of achievement is 
within himself, and that man may draw upon the eter¬ 
nal, universal, life-giving energy, he takes on a new 
spirit and becomes a new creature. 

When we realize that there is a chance for our suc¬ 
cess, our health, our prosperity, and our happiness, 
then we become “new creatures” and put more effort 
into our work, more spirit into our endeavor, more 
soul into our interests; and after that all we have to 
do is to bide the time when there will be a manifesta¬ 
tion of our hope, courage and faith. 

Orthodoxy has taught for centuries that man is weak, 
sinful and prone to err; that man is a worm in the dust. 
Such teaching Could produce nothing but a race of 
“worm men”—a race of men who are poverty-stricken, 
disease-infected, mentally disturbed and morally weak. 
The result of this teaching has been a world filled with 
sickness, poverty, sorrow, misfortune and disease. For 
centuries, the church taught that it was “pleasing” to 
God for man to grovel in poverty, to agonize in pain, 
and to be fearful of the storms of life; and the race 


VISUALIZATION—IMAGINATION 


319 


has reaped just what centuries of orthodoxy have sown. 
Teach a man that he is a “worm in the dust” and he 
is going to be a “worm man.” I may be a worm, ac¬ 
cording to theology; but by heck! I will have a backbone 
in my “wormdom.” 

I was invited by some members of my class one Sun¬ 
day to attend their church. I had been teaching my 
class that the great “Power Within,” the “God-Spirit,” 
the “Creative Energy” would bring health, happiness 
and peace into their minds and into their lives, and 
here, the very first thing that minister did, in opening 
his service, was to ask the congregation to arise for the 
invocation, and he proceeded to raise his hands and his 
voice in a most pitiful supplication to an unseen per¬ 
sonal God, somewhere up in the skies. He made a 
prayer like this: “Oh, Lord, we are but worms of the 
dust; we have come here this morning in our travail and 
our sin, and we now raise our weak hands to thee, be¬ 
seeching thy mercy and thy pardon.” No wonder the 
congregation was attending psychological lectures. If 
that kind of “worm-in-the-dust” orthodoxy had not 
sent them to psychology, it would have sent them either 
to the nether kingdom or to a madhouse. 

If we don’t have abundance, if we don’t have health, 
if we don’t have friends, orthodoxy has taught us to 
lay the blame on God. For eighteen hundred years, 
orthodoxy has taught us to “be content” with our lot 
and that the harder our lot, the more content ought we 
to be; and we have “raised our weak orthodox hands” 
to an tinseen, distant power, crying out, in our weak¬ 
ness, that we are “satisfied” to be poor—because God 


320 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


wills it; that we will endure sickness because it is the 
will of our Father. What blasphemy! And against an 
all-wise, loving Creator! What depravity to picture 
“Our Father” wishing on us poverty, sickness, disease 
and sorrow! 

We blame God for many things for which He is not 
responsible. We have been sick, and we have thanked 
God that we could be sick “because He wanted it'so;” 
we have been poor, and we have thanked God that .we 
could be poor “because He wanted it so;” we have 
had misfortunes because of our wrong thinking and 
wrong living, and we have thanked God that He gave 
us misfortunes “because He wanted us to have them;” 
and we have had domestic inharmony, national convul¬ 
sions and international wars and have thanked God that 
we have had our divorces and that we have had our 
national cyclones and our international butchery of war 
“because God wanted it so.” 

Blasphemy personified, depravity burlesqued, and 
God caricatured! God has never wished and has never 
wanted His creation to be in pain; to have sickness; to 
be in inharmony, discord or war. We have had these 
things because we have thought God wanted us to have 
them and our thinking has brought them upon us. 
Change our view of God and our way of thinking, and 
these things will be buried in the dust-bins of forget¬ 
fulness. 

I had a family in my church, as “godly” a family as 
a Christian church could develop—that is, some of the 
family were godly. The father was a deacon and the 
mother was the “main prop” of the women's organiza- 


VISUALIZATION—IMAGINATION 


321 


tions. The father had worshipped the tyrannical, mur¬ 
derous, war-lusting, God of orthodoxy, and the kind 
of God he worshiped was reflected in his life. By the 
time he was fifty years of age, the reflecting of this 
awful monster of a God had made of himself a miniature 
monster and tyrant in his home, and this had brought 
on a sickness from which the doctors said he could not 
recover. (The doctors were right—so long as the man 
continued his murderous thoughts of a murderous God.) 
When this sickness came, he was entirely and absolutely 
dependant upon his family for support. There were two 
older boys in the home who had to go to work, as well 
as the mother, leaving the two younger children to at¬ 
tend school. 

The two older boys were just out of high school— 
the time when they should have had an opportunity, if 
they wanted it, to make preparation for a career in life. 
One of the boys had somewhat the spirit of the old man, 
but the other was a clean-cut, ambitious, four-square 
young chap. He secured a job with a glass) corporation 
which paid him one hundred and twenty-five dollars a 
month; the most that he could ever have gotten with 
that concern would have been one hundred and fifty 
dollars. He was young—a whole life before him—and 
one hundred and fifty dollars a month looked small for 
him to be drawing twenty-five years hence. 

He had been ambitious to go to college; he had been 
a leader in his high school athletics and studies, and 
could have gone off to college and made his way with¬ 
out one cent from the family; but his father’s irregular 
thinking had brought on his breakdown, and the boy 


322 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


had to give up a college education to give all his earn¬ 
ings to support the old man and his family. Of course 
this unreasonable responsibility irked the young fellow; 
of course he rebelled inwardly against the fate which 
seemed to confine him forever in such a limited and 
circumscribed position. He talked to his parents about 
'going to college, and every time he talked to them they 
came back with orthodoxy and told the young fellow; that 
“if God wanted him to go to college, God would send 
him, if God wanted him to have more than one hun¬ 
dred and twenty-five dollars or one hundred and fifty 
dollars a month, God would give it to him . 9 9 They said 
he ought to be contented with the job he had, and settle 
down and live a poor man’s poverty-stricken existence 
forever, because “it was the will of God.” 

Bah! No wonder the young fellow did not want to 
have anything to do with the church or with that kind 
of a God. He did not believe in such a God any more 
than you do; but orthodoxy had instilled into the con¬ 
sciousness of these good people, his parents, a belief in 
a tyrannical Creator who chortled in his glee, watching 
the writhings, the agonies and the tortures of the chil¬ 
dren of his creation. The young fellow rebelled, and 
rebellion became defiance and the family knew it. 

He was determined he was going to college; he 
wasn’t going to waste all his life in a one-hundred-and- 
twenty-five-dollar-a-month job ; so he selected his college 
and sent away for the catalogue; but meanwhile our 
country had entered the European war, and the par¬ 
ticular course he wanted did not appear in the cata¬ 
logue. Then the family had an orthodox pow-wow at 


VISUALIZATION—IMAGINATION 


323 


which they “hoped to smoke the pipe of peace” with the 
boy, and with all the solemn monotone of an age-long 
orthodox deacon, the “spokesman for orthodoxy and 
the Church” said: “See here, my boy, God could not 
keep you from going to college, therefore He has taken 
the course out of the college so that you won’t go.” 
Bah! Bah! Bah! Hot Rot! Rot! Blasphemy! Blas¬ 
phemy ! Blasphemy! Caricature! Caricature! Caricature! 

The boy did his patriotic duty—went off to war—and 
when he came back, he returned a full-fledged, independ¬ 
ent American, believing in himself more than ever. He 
left the fireside; he left orthodoxy; he left the tommy- 
rot preaching of a gleeful God, dancing on the neck of 
his poverty-stricken creation; and he went to seek his 
fortune. Within two years the boy was able to send 
home two hundred dollars at a chunk—he had risen 
above the one-hundred-and-twenty-five-dollar-a-month 
job—he had “struck it rich” quicker than he had ex¬ 
pected, and the parents did not refuse the money when 
it came rolling in. Their God, according to their teach¬ 
ing, had made them poor; but the boy, according to his 
own' thinking, in co-operation with the natural laws of 
an abundant Creator, had pushed the skeleton of pov¬ 
erty out of the back door and had ushered in a day of 
abundance. , 

Yes, we blame God for a lot of things that He never 
did. As a minister, I have buried more than one person, 
about whom I would make my guess that the doctors had 
killed, but we blamed it on God. There was a ritual of 
the church which required the minister, at the open 
grave, make this lying declaration—no matter who 


324 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


was buried, at what age, or what caused the death— 
whether it was a wrong prescription from a doctor, 
irregular or intemperate living, wrong thinking, or acci¬ 
dent, namely: “Inasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty 
God to take away from us this dear brother, we now 
commit his body to earth—dust to dust, ashes to ashes 

—and-. ’’ Folderol! I never was* guilty, so far 

as I know, of being such a liar at the bier of some dead 
man who could not rise up and defend himself against 
my falsehood—of saying that it “hath pleased God” to 
take any one away—that part of it was cut out by me. 

Yes, we blame God for killing us, when the fact is that 
ninety-nine out of every hundred of us die before our 
time because we have broken the laws in more ways 
than one. 

For centuries we have been blaming God for our in¬ 
harmonious homes. We have been saying at the mar¬ 
riage altar and wherever else orthodoxy has been able 
to blow its own horn, that “marriages are made in 
heaven,” and “what God hath joined together let not 
man put asunder,” and the next year, the couple end 
their miserable companionship through a divorce court. 
We have been blaming God for being mismated when 
God has nothing to do with our mismating in our ignor¬ 
ance, because of centuries of wrong teaching about the 
orthodox “contentment with our lot,” we marry at ran¬ 
dom—without any scientific selection, either sexually, 
mentally, or spiritually—and our gross ignorance brings 
upon us wrecked homes, ruined lives and blighted pros¬ 
pects, and we blame it on God. God has nothing to do 
with it. We have refused to rise up to the dignity of 


VISUALIZATION—IMAGINATION 


325 


our intelligence and conform to the laws which God 
has made for the happiness of His children—married 
or unmarried. 

When we come into the realization of the great power 
within and when, by the operation of psychological 
laws, among which visualization has its place, we aban¬ 
don the heathenish, superstitious idea that God wants 
us to be poor and God wants us to be unhappy, we 
change our conditions by changing our thinking. If 
we think “God wants us to be prosperous and God 
wants us to be well and God wants us to be happy,” 
we change our lives, and we will also change the world. 
The world never will be saved, and the world never 
will be well, and the world never will be prosperous, 
and the world never will be happy until we do away 
with this horrible caricature of a tyrannical, murderous, 
war-ridden God. 

'So long as we preach the God of war which the Old 
Testament so vividly depicts and the Christian church 
has so universally believed and magnified, just so long 
will we have war. Talk about a “God of war” and 
we produce war; preach murder and murder we will 
know; glorify wholesale butchery and wholesale butchery 
we draw upon us; worship a God who is happy in see¬ 
ing the children of His creation enmeshed in conflict 
and strife, and strife and conflict are our portion. The 
world will never be changed until we change our con¬ 
ception of God. 

Think a God and preach a God of abundance, of 
prosperity, of health, of happiness, of co-operation, of 
fellowship and brotherhood, and we will have world- 


326 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


wide brotherhood; but we never will have—despite our 
peace conferences and our Hague temples and our 
pseudo-exchange of national good-fellowship greetings 
—world-wide brotherhood unless we change our concep¬ 
tion of a God of war and put into his place the God 
that the gentle Nazarene came to teach and expound 
and to interpret by His life—a God of Spirit, a God of 
love, a God whom every man and woman and child 
on the face of the earth can call by that most tender 
and endearing term, “Our Father.’’ 

When the tyrannical, blood-thirsty vengeful God of 
orthdoxy becomes “Our Father” in our thinking and 
in our consciousness, then the world will be saved and 
universal brotherhood will be established. 


PEAR—MAN’S WORST ENEMY 


327 


CHAPTER XY 


FEAR—MAN’S WORST ENEMY 


Man’s Worst Enemy—Where Fear First Came From 
and How It Can Be Eliminated 

Man’s worst enemy throughout the ages has not been 
war, disease, poverty, intoxicants, failure, crime, fam¬ 
ine, or death; man’s greatest enemy has been FEAR. 

“Man,” to quote a famous writer, “often has fear 
stamped upon him before his entrance into the outer 
world; he is reared in fear; all his life is passed in bon¬ 
dage of fear of disease and death and thus his whole 
mentality becomes cramped, limited, and depressed, and 
his body follows its shrunken pattern and specifica¬ 
tion. Think of the millions of sensitive and responsive 
souls among our ancestors who have been under the do¬ 
minion of such a perpetual nightmare! IS IT NOT 
SURPRISING THAT HEALTH EXISTS AT ALL? 
Nothing but the boundless Divine Love, exuberance, and 
vitality, constantly poured in, even though uncon¬ 
sciously to us, could in some degrees neutralize such 
an ocean of morbidity.” 

There is the fear of old age—fear of losing our fac¬ 
ulties and again becoming childlike; while crowning all 
is the fear of death. There is a long line of particular 
trouble-bearing expectations, as for example, fear 
ideas associated with certain articles of food, dread 




328 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


of the east wind, of the hot weather, of the 
aches and pains associated with cold weather, 
fear of catching cold if one sits in a draught, fear of the 
coming of hay fever on the 14th of August in the mid¬ 
dle of the day, and so on through a long list of fears, 
dreads, worriments, anxieties,, anticipations, expec¬ 
tations, pessimisms, morbidities, and the whole ghastly 
train of fateful shapes which our fellowmen, and espe¬ 
cially our physicians, are ready to help us conjure up— 
an array worthy to rank with Bradley’s “unearthly 
ballet of bloodless categories.” 

Nor is this all. This vast array is swelled by in¬ 
numerable volunteers from daily life; the possibility 
of accident, calamity, loss of property; the chance of 
robbery; of fire; of war. And it is not deemed suf¬ 
ficient to fear for ourselves. When a friend is taken 
ill, we must forthwith fear the worst and apprehend 
death. If one meet with sorrow, our sympathy tends 
to entering into and increasing the suffering. 

There is nothing to fear in life, nothing to fear in 
death, and yet millions of the sons of man today are 
harrassed by the fear-thought of death and its terrible 
consequences. God, Jesus said, is Love. In an orderly 
universe, where Love is creator and guide, there can be 
absolutely nothing for man to fear. MAN BRINGS ON 
HIS OWN TROUBLES by this fear-thought. If we 
fear failure, we attract failure to us; if we fear pov¬ 
erty, by the law of attraction we draw poverty to us; 
if we fear sickness—well, it is a wonder that more peo¬ 
ple are not sick, judging from the way they like to 
“roll” their troubles, their pains and belly-aches, under 
their tongues like a sweet morsel. 


FEAR—MAN’S WORST ENEMY 


329 


Fear has left man floundering in heathenism and 
feeding at the trough of superstition. 

Fear has been the keystone in the arch of theology. 
Theology is inoculated with fear; psychology is per¬ 
meated with confidence. Psychology knows no fear; no 
fear of God, for God is Love; no fear of man, for man 
is a part of God; no fear of the devil, for psychology 
has no devil; and no fear of hell, for God is omnipresent 
—everywhere—and where God is, there can be no hell, 
because His presence would drive out or nullify hell. 

We still put the “‘soft pedal” on “hell,” because we 
are “afraid” to express what our common sense dic¬ 
tates. But if a man allows a padlock on his lips, it 
gives him fatty degeneration of the backbone. Psychol¬ 
ogy doesn’t believe in that kind of a backbone. 

And where do we get this fear? It comes from cen¬ 
turies of erroneous religious teachings. And where do 
we get our religion? We get it from our own minds— 
our God is the reflection of our thinking. 

Tell me what is a man’s conception of God, and I will 
tell you that man’s conception of life. 

Our conception of God is the result of our thinking. 
God has been expressed, through countless centuries, in 
many and divers ways. Each tribe and clan and na¬ 
tion has depicted and worshipped its own peculiar gods, 
and these gods have been the result of their thinking; 
this has always been true and it always will be true. 

What has produced the gods of India? Why, man’s 
thinking. What has produced the gods of Greece—a 
much milder, more beautiful, and more companionable 
set of gods than the Hindu gods? What has given the 
Greek his gods? Why, his thinking. What made the 


330 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


difference in the thinking of these two nationalities" 
Natural phenomena. Man responds, in his thinking, to 
the natural conditions around him, just as the baby re¬ 
sponds to the cooing of its mother, and the tiger re¬ 
sponds to the call of the jungle. 

The religion a man has or feels is an expression of 
his inward mind. All outward thought is an expression 
of inward thought. Let me illustrate. I am going to 
take you to two countries. I am going to show you, 
according to Buckle, who says this same comparison can 
be made of all other nations of the world, that every 
nation’s gods are expressions of the thoughts of the 
people themselves. 

Over in India, for instance, we have a country 
abounding in natural phenomena which man was not 
able to conquer. Nature, in India, is sx> great and so 
marvelous that the people were not able to understand 
it; they stood in awe and fell down on their knees, 
quivering and shaking and wondering what had pro¬ 
duced it; their minds were filled with superstitious 
dread, and they said: “The gods have made these 
wonders.” 

I am going to show you some of these gods. I will 
show you why India has her kind of gods and why 
Greece has another kind of gods. 

India has a river so large that all the engineering 
skill of the world cannot make a bridge to span it. She 
has the highest mountains in the world, the Himalayas. 
The small-statured man of India looked up at their 
snow-crested peaks, stood in wonder and could not 
understand what had made them. He was not able to 
scale the mountains. He could not ford the river. And 


FEAR—MAN’S WORST ENEMY 


331 


because he was unable to understand these great nat¬ 
ural phenomena, his wonder resolved itself into fear, 
and his fear imbued the thought of his gods with fear¬ 
someness. 

The Indian ocean, washing the shores of India, is 
more treacherous than any of the other oceans. Here 
are the severest storms. There is not a single natural 
harbor all the way from the mouth of the Ganges, 
along the southern border of India, down the penin¬ 
sula and around it—not one natural harbor where ships 
can find refuge from storms. 

All the forests and jungles of India are the same— 
immense and awe-inspiring. The thickness of the 
jungle is such that man can only penetrate it near the 
edge—he cannot subdue it or fathom it. The animals 
of the country are much larger than those of Greece. 
The Indian with his little popgun had no power over 
them, and because he could not conquer the tigers and 
the elephants and the crocodiles and the snakes (which 
are larger in India than anywhere else in the world), he 
bowed down and worshipped them. The people could 
not understand why these animals were there. So they 
thought that the gods willed it. 

Because this country is so terrible and its natural 
phenomena so awful, India made her gods accordingly. 
This, then, is the kind of gods they have in India. If 
natural conditions had been genial, beautiful, and love¬ 
ly, the mind of the Indians would have gone into the 
garden-spot of imagination to make their gods lovely 
and kind; but because the jungles were so great and the 
animals so mammoth that they could not conquer them, 


332 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


they began to ramble in the realms of superstitions; 
and these are the gods their minds depicted. 

Take just one instance—Siva and his wife. The god 
Siva is a monstrous hideous thing, and to show how ter¬ 
rible he is, he has a girdle of snakes for a “stomacher/’ 
To show how ferocious he is, and that he had it in his 
mind to do harm to people, he is dressed in tiger skins. 
He is supposed to ramble around with all the ferocity of 
a tiger. In one hand he carries the skull of a giant he 
has killed. Over the left shoulder, to enhance the ter¬ 
rible features of this god who goes around seeking 
whom he may devour, bends the head of a cobra, the 
largest snake known. This god has wings. He enters 
the homes of the people, striking fear and terror and 
death into their hearts. It is all the product of imagi¬ 
nation. Imagination has created these fancies because 
of the natural phenomena of India—phenomena which 
man was not able to conquer. 

See the beautiful wife this god has. All the gods are 
male and female. What a nice wife is Durga! If you 
have ever seen a blue man, you have an idea of the color 
of Durga. She is a being with four heads, four arms, 
the palms of her hands dripping with blood to show her 
appetite for the 'lives of the people of India. She has a 
nice necklace. It is made of the skulls of people whom 
she has killed and devoured. What nice, beautiful 
goddesses India has along with her many gods! They 
all come from the mind within. The people of India 
were not able to understand the phenomena around 
them, and so it was that India, through fear, pictured 
the gods she worships today. 

If you will now go with me to Peru, you will find a 


FEAR—MAN’S WORST ENEMY 


333 


country where they have more earthquakes than in any 
other part of the world. In places where earthquakes 
are frequent, each time the earth begins to quake the 
people are filled with more fear than before—they can¬ 
not understand it. The natives of Peru are so filled 
with fear that they have mentalities about as big as a 
pinhead. No country has more superstition than Peru. 

In Spain and Portugal, where earthquakes are fre¬ 
quent and where the storms are terrible, superstition 
reigns supreme. This explains why, in the Dark Ages, 
the clergy had its greatest grip upon the inhabitants of 
these countries. The people could neither understand 
nor conquer surrounding conditions, so they resorted to 
superstition. They believed their sorrows came as a 
direct visitation from God! 

The church today is still teaching this. I was raised 
in a church which taught me that, if I was sick or sor¬ 
rowful or poor, it was due to the facts that God was 
pleased to have me sick and filled with misfortune and 
poverty. 

Reared by such teachings, man is filled with fear as 
a porcupine with quills. No longer are our feet going 
to be snared by the toils laid by our ancestors. 

Now come with me to Greece and we will make a 
comparison. Greece is a little country. The rivers in 
Greece are so small that most of them dry up in the 
summertime. Many of them can easily be forded. Here 
are no large jungles. The animals are not large and 
ferocious. Here they have many natural harbors along 
the Mediterranean coast. So man, here, was able to take 
care of himself. He did not look up in awe to a great 
mountain chain, as in India, for it was not there. 


334 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


The Greek went about his way. He was able to cross 
the rivers and to cope with the animals that came his 
way. Because he was able to take care of himself, he 
had a kindlier set of gods than had the people of India. 

The same principle holds true today. As we begin 
to understand psychology, we'learn that there is noth¬ 
ing to fear, and in this one particular, psychology dif¬ 
fers from the Christian church of the last eighteen 
hundred years. 

The people of Greece, able to take care of themselves, 
were in position to develop the power within. There 
was nothing to fear, and so Greece had a set of gods 
and goddesses altogether different from the deities of 
India. Diana, the woman, portrays the gladness and 
the beauty of woman. Notice the difference between 
the gods and the goddesses of Greece and those of 
India. Venus, representing beauty and sensuality— 
how altogether different from Durga of India! When 
we think of the beauty of woman, we think of Diana 
and Venus. There is Juno for pride—and pride is a 
dominant characteristic of the gods as well as of the 
people of Greece. Minerva, the goddess of accomplish¬ 
ment—what a difference between these goddesses and 
the kind worshipped in India! The same contrast mani¬ 
fests itself among the gods. They are about the same 
as man, only a little more powerful and a little more 
beautiful. Neptune is a sailor; Vulcan, a smith. The 
only difference between the people and their gods is 
that the gods are believed to be a. little more powerful 
than man. The gods followed the same kind of occupa¬ 
tion that man followed. Man was of the same kind, 
only the gods stood on a little higher plane. 


FEAR—MAN’S WORST ENEMY 


335 


The people of Greece could understand a god who 
was a smith or a sailor, but they could not have under¬ 
stood Siva and his wife, huge beings who tried to kill 
people and make them sorrowful and fill them with ter¬ 
ror and fright. It was all just a matter of mind—due 
to the natural phenomena of different places. 

Fear has kept people in heathenism, and fear comes 
into the heart of man according to the god, or gods, he 
worships. If we worship a god who puts strength with¬ 
in us, and we are linked with that God, there can be 
no fear and no worry in our world. 

Theology—the Christian Church of today as an insti¬ 
tution—is not run according to the specifications of 
Jesus Christ. The Christian Church of today is an or¬ 
ganization of speculation. What we call “theology” is 
not religion pure and undefiled, not religion as we 
should have it. We speculate about the theology, and 
we say, “this is what may or may not be,” and “this is 
what the Church stands for.” It is interesting to see 
that since the ascension of Christ, the Church has had a 
new leader for each century. There was a leader of the 
third century, another in the fourth, and in this way 
it has gone on through the centuries. Mental giants, 
able to speculate have given the Christian Church one 
theology after another, of which Christ never dreamed. 
Jesus never speculated at all. He went about doing 
good. We find Jesus at work; He was always “doing 
the works of the Father.” He was sending out the 
spirit of forgiveness to the people who came near Him, 
and He healed wherever He went. 

Theology is speculation from beginning to end, while 
psychology is a science that can be demonstrated. I 


336 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


must have something I can demonstrate and under¬ 
stand. This is the thing I will bet money on and give 
money for. 

The question has been asked of me: “Do you believe 
in God?” Certainly, I believe in God—I believe in a 
God of love, and no one has portrayed Him more beau¬ 
tifully than the “Man of Galilee.” I believe in Spirit 
—“God is Spirit,” said Jesus. God is Love. That is 
the God I believe in. I don’t believe in a God of “hell- 
fire and brimstone.” 

Going back to the Old Testament, from which the 
Christian religion gets much of its teachings, there are 
numerous instances where the prophets tried to tell the 
people, who were submerged in superstition, and who 
killed lambs and bullocks “to please God,” that that 
was not what God wanted. God does not want death— 
He wants life; and that is what the prophets taught. 
Ezekiel said: “Will God be pleased with thousands of 
lambs and rivers of oil ? ” The prophets were trying to 
teach the Israelites that God was not pleased with sac¬ 
rifice. What God wants, to quote from the “Man of 
Galilee,” is service; and not blood from animal or man. 

As stated at the beginning of this chapter, man’s 
worst enemy has been fear, throughout the centuries. 
Fear is one of the chief causes of disease. A great 
psychologist, who has been frequently quoted by the 
late Professor James says: “The remarkable thing is 
that we have any health at all. Our mothers were filled 
with fear when we were conceived; our progenitors 
were filled with fear when we came into the light; and 
we have been filled with the fear, bodily and mentally, 


FEAR—MAN’S WORST ENEMY 


337 


for 1800 years; and the peculiar thing is, with the 
fear of death, fear of disease, fear of sickness, fear 
of God, and fear of hell—the wonderful thing is—that 
anyone has any health at all.” 

Ninety-eight per cent of our sickness comes from 
negative and fearful thoughts. You may have them, 
or someone else may have them and pass them on to 
you. Any institution, like the Christian Church, which 
has taught fear for centuries, is guilty of bringing sick¬ 
ness into the world, and the fact that we have so much 
sickness (we are told ninety per cent of the people of 
America and of the world at large have some form of 
illness) is evidence that the Christian Church has failed 
in its opportunity for serving mankind. 

It is the “fear of hell” which we have had instilled 
in our subconscious minds that is bringing sickness to 
many of us. 1 used to go to meetings and listen to the 
preaching of hell-fire and brimstone. That was thirty- 
two years ago. I imagined that there was a great fur¬ 
nace of fire, and that, if I were not good, I was going to 
be stuck into that furnace and would burn forever and 
forever. I am sure this doctrine was preached with all 
sincerity. Men preached it until thousands of people 
believed it, and they got down on their knees to the God 
who had made them in order to throw the majority of 
His creation into a fiery furnace to burn there forever. 
God does not burn anyone and never will. The idea 
of accusing God Almighty of being guilty of burning 
His own creation! There is not a man or a woman who 
is a father or a mother who would burn even a finger 
of their little child. Then to say that God who is in¬ 
finitely more loving than humanity, would ever dream 


338 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


of burning one of His creation, even for a moment, is 
the worst kind of ignorance I know of. 

How could we ever believe that a few people w'ould 
be saved to play on golden harps they never had any 
use for on earth, while the majority of the sons of God 
burned down in hell! It is absurd! 

The Christian religion, in point of numbers, is one of 
the least in the world. There are four hundred million 
people in India, four hundred million in China, an 
equal number in Africa—probably, in round numbers, 
fifteen to twenty hundred million people in the world 
who are not Christians. There are about one hundred 
and ten million people in America, who are called 
Christians. Some of them., according to my standards, 
do not measure up very high; but let us say we have 
one hundred and ten million Christians in America, and 
probably, an equal number in Europe; two hundred 
million people that are to be saved and twenty hun¬ 
dred millions that are to be burned. The idea of burn¬ 
ing twenty hundred million people and saving two 
hundred million! What a travesty against God! 

Then, we divide up our denominations for such little 
differences! I have been through the whole thing. First, 
I was sprinkled, and then I thought I did not get 
enough water and so I had my second immersion. I 
“went under” all the way. Then I went out as a 
minister. We, as Baptists, were supposed to preach 
that if you were a Methodist you would not be saved. 
How could we think that a small handful of people 
would be saved, and all the other millions of the earth 
“damned” to eternal punishment! What mental de¬ 
pravity to fancy such a God! 


FEAR—MAN’S WORST ENEMY 


339 


The God we have been worshipping, in the Christian 
Church, is a conception instilled into the hearts of men 
by fear, absolutely. 

The theology of today is a [repetition of the theology 
of Rome, only added to and taken from, here and there. 
Let me show you a nice picture they had of hell in the 
sixteenth century (which one particular church still 
maintains today). They taught in the sixteenth cen¬ 
tury that, before a baby was born, it was either con¬ 
demned to eternal punishment or predestined to be 
saved. Imagine a mother in those days, when families 
were large—eight or ten or fourteen children—thinking 
before her baby was born that it might be consigned to 
eternal punishment! Can any one picture a more hor¬ 
rible hell ? Think of a mother, going through suffering 
and danger in order to give life to another being, one 
already damned forever and forever! But this was 
the way they taught. 

I will give you one more picture. I could talk for 
hours, portraying the different kinds of hell 
the Church has taught that man was going into. You 
would have to live a long time in eternity to get into 
half the hells they had. Here is one of them: A great, 
big sea of molten lead (not the teaching of Christ, but 
of the Church), surrounded by slippery walls. After 
you had been in this molten lead for a long time—an 
“eternity”—you are still able to suffer and keep on 
burning. There is a chance now and then for you to 
climb up the slippery walls and escape, but you never 
do escape. The church has it fixed in that respect. 
They have it fixed so you can climb up; but after you 
climb up, there are many thousand devils, who walk 


340 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


close to the edge and push you hack, not into the molten 
lead but into ice-cold water (there has to be the con¬ 
trast to make you suffer more). You drop from the 
molten lead back into ice-cold water and swim around 
in that for a few thousand centuries. 

There is one of the pictures of hell that was depicted 
by the Christian Church. Can any thinking human 
being believe in that? 

My candid opinion is that there is not one educated 
minister in America who actually, in his heart, believes 
in this stuff the Church stands for, and the only way to 
change the situation is for you people who are mem¬ 
bers of churches to tell your church that you don’t be¬ 
lieve in that silly stuff, and that you want your minister 
to have the freedom to teach what he believes; and not 
until that time comes will the shackles be broken from 
the Christian Church. 

When you people go to your churches and tell 
your boards of deacons and directors that you want 
your ministers to have freedom in preaching, there will 
be a different kind of freedom or preaching from that 
we have now. Then Applied Christianity will come in, 
my friends, and the old theology will go out. 

The god, my friends, who is being taught and wor¬ 
shipped in the churches—a god of fear—is a god that 
is keeping America and the rest of the world in pov¬ 
erty. Go to where they have a picture of God more 
fearful than is found in any other place, and that is 
where there is the greatest poverty. We have a little 
more money in America than the people who are less 
fortunate, because we have a somewhat more "likely” 
picture of God. 


FEAR—MAN’S WORST ENEMY 


341 


All through, the Old Testament is filled with the 
songs of Miriam and Joshua and others—filled with 
songs of the glory of the god of war. iSk> long as the 
Christian Church believes in a god who is a tyrant—a 
monster who creates human beings to burn them after¬ 
wards—so long as we worship a god of war, just so 
long will the people of the earth fight and have war 
and more war. 

We talk about brotherhood. I believe with all my 
soul that it is coming; but it cannot come while the 
Christian Church preaches from its pulpits the kind of 
God that condemns Eds creation to hell-fire, nor so long 
as the different denominations are fighting with one an¬ 
other. 

I will give you a point of difference between the 
teachings of Psychology and the teachings of the Chris¬ 
tian Church. Fear has been taught in the Christian 
Church for the last 1800 years. So long as we teach 
fear—fear of hell, fear of dependency in the future, fear 
of coming before the face of God, on the day of judg¬ 
ment—so long as we teach this, just so long will the 
people have sickness, sorrow, and the curse of poverty. 
The moment we begin to teach a God of love, abun¬ 
dance, charity, mercy, and peace, that is the moment 
everybody is going to have abundance. 

How I should like to give you a picture of what I 
think is God, if I could! No one has ever been able 
to do it anywhere nearly so sweetly as Jesus Christ. If 
you don’t quite understand the teachings of the Church 
—if you have been told there is no chance for you to 
be saved, and you are not a member of any church, 
and you don’t contribute because you can’t believe 


342 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


everything that is being preached—I want you to know 
that you have ju£t as much chance to come to the pearly 
gates and be ushered in by St. Peter as any man who 
believes in hell. 

The Judgment—how I should like to talk to you on 
that! Do you know what I believe the Judgment is? 

A murderer, according to a published statement, 
was hanged on the gallows, a short time ago, because 
the criminal laws of America do not take care of boys 
when they make their first false step. I could no more 
think that murderer as being condemned to eternal 
punishment than I could conceive of my mother, sacred 
to me as his mother is to any other man, a subject for 
damnation. 

My opinion of judgment is this: I don’t care what 
anyone has done. I believe if I had the same environ¬ 
ment, lived under the same conditions, and had the 
same temperament as someone else who has made some 
slip, I might be as low, and perhaps a little lower my¬ 
self. I don’t care what a man has done or what a 
woman has done to break the civil or moral laws of 
man or God. The one who has had the hardest life of 
sinning here, has more love and tenderness coming 
from God Almighty, if that can be. 

I believe the Judgment will be a great homecoming. 
I believe it is going to be just as happy and sweet as an 
earthly homecoming—to come into the infinite pres¬ 
ence of the Almighty who is our loving Father. 

For you people raised in the Church who have your 
idea of what heaven is, I would say I believe the Judg¬ 
ment is not going to be a day to be feared, nor a day 
when God will frown upon you and condemn you to 







FEAR—MAN’S WORST ENEMY 


343 


punishment. I believe that for all who have made mis¬ 
takes, from the murderer hanged on the gallows, to the 
scarlet woman who mourns that she ever took her first 
wrong step, for all the people we call sinners (I would 
not have that word in my vocabulary), it will be just a 
homecoming. They are going to be ushered into the 
presence of the Father. No one will be filled with 
fear. 

I believe it is going to be like the story Jesus has 
told of the Prodigal Son. When he came back, his 
father fell upon his neck and kissed him. I care not 
how low men and women have fallen, when they are 
ushered in the world to come, they are going into the 
presence of love, and love will have neither scorn nor 
scowl. Love will meet love, and the man who has gone 
wrong and who approaches the judgment seat in the 
spirit of love is going to receive the greatest welcome 
from God that man ever had. 

To come down to a few practical things for you and 
the rest of us: So long as we have the religion of yes¬ 
terday, so long shall we have sorrow and poverty and 
mistakes and sickness. 

I was raised in a home that was puritanical in the 
extreme. I was told that if I smiled today, I would 
pay for it some time tomorrow. Think of it! That we 
could bring such an accusation against God and Christ! 
And it is just as wrong to teach that we are going to 
a last judgment where God will point the finger of 
scorn at us and condemn us to eternal punishment. If 
He does, then He is not the God I know, and I do not 
want to meet Him, because He does not want me. 

When we come under the influence of fear, and take 


314 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


it into the business world, it is easy to explain the effect. 
Here is a business man who says that every time he in¬ 
vests money, the stock market goes down. He is filled 
with fear. When we have fear, we lose out every time. 
We must hold the idea that we are working with the 
greatest power in the world behind us. Call it God, to 
be short. If we are working with God, there is nothing 
to fear—nothing to fear in our business transactions, 
nothing to fear in our domestic relations. There is no 
more need to fear God when we meet Him face to face, 
than when a little child meets its loving parent. 

When we believe there is a power trying to harm us, 
and we are always filled with fear and timidity, we can 
never be successful. If we are filled with fear about 
business transactions, we can never be positive men. 
This is borne out by the experiences of great financiers 
of America and elsewhere. They are all men who are 
positive in their decisions. 

You must be so filled with positive thoughts that 
when some business deal comes up, you can instantly 
make your decision. A man who cannot make a de¬ 
cision, probably never will be much of a success in the 
business world. If you are not able to make a positive 
decision, it is because you have been filled with fear 
all your life—probably instilled by religion and the 
Christian Church. I want you to know that there isn’t 
anything in the world for you to fear. If you seem to 
have any cause for fear, it is in your mind. Fear is 
only in our minds. Anything we worry about is a 
matter of imagination. 

I thought for many years that the devil was pur¬ 
suing me. When I said to the devil: “Get thee behind 


FEAR—MAN’S WORST ENEMY 


345 


me—I am just as good a sport as you are! ” that is the 
time the fellow ran, and I have not seen him since. I 
actually used to think that there was a devil chasing 
me. When we think the devil is on our trail, he Is 
there; and when we believe he isn’t there, he leaves. 

FEAR 

Deep in my flesh have Satan’s arrows flown, 

And evil javelins by his demons thrown; 

His cruel lash my bleeding back has borne, 

Till my tried spirit could but pray and mourn; 
Sharp are the prongs his hand relentless guides; 
And sharp the pangs his savage sport provides. 

My heart beneath his thrusts has cried in pain, 

Yet ever feels the ceaseless blows again. 

Then one foul spear, more deadly than the rest. 
Malignant struck, and pierced my aching breast; 
Straight through my heart the wicked missile 
wound, 

And pinned me prostrate on the gory ground. 
There fixed, I saw above my brow upraised 
The claw of Satan, who in triumph gazed; 
Within that claw his dripping trident shook, 

The while he froze me with a fiendish look. 

He laughed—and as my feeble strength grew less. 
Stabbed once again in wanton wickedness. 
Worst blow of all, it crushed my reeling head, 
And the cursi’d creature left me there for dead, 

But as I lay, of mind and hope bereft, 

In each dire wound a spear or arrow left, 

There reached my side a blessing from above— 

A loyal friend, with ministering love! 


346 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


He soothed my brow, and from my mangled 
frame 

Pulled each dread missile sent by Satan’s aim; 
With healing touch my myriad hurts repaired, 
And through the years for all my future cared; 
Taught me that he who all my ills bestowed 
Was but my erring mind’s Tartarean load— 

So now I know that suff’ring’s lethal spear 
Comes from the hand of that arch-demon—fear! 

Did you ever get so deeply into debt that every¬ 
body was clamoring for money, and they were threat¬ 
ening that they would do this and that to you? You 
don’t know what you have missed if you have not had 
this experience. I have been paying debts for more 
than thirty years, paying interest on stuff so old 1 
had paid it twice over. I can teach you how to meet 
your debts by visualization—how to meet every one 
of your obligations. If you are honest and want to 
meet your debts, you don’t have to fear one second 
what is going to happen tomorrow. If you will fol¬ 
low the rule I will give you, you can meet every obliga¬ 
tion, maintain your dignity and self-respect, and win 
the loyalty even of your creditors. If you believe in 
God, in yourself, and in the power within, the creditors 
are going to know that and give you time. I wrote 
the poem above when I was wondering what my credit¬ 
ors were going to do to me. 

I want to give you two or three other thoughts on 
the difference between Psychology and the Christian 
Church. I want to give you an illustration on business. 
After all, what do you care about hell, so long as you 


FEAR—MAN’S WORST ENEMY 


347 


can go on and be more succesful in your business? One 
who is filled with fear of hell or of failure, can never 
achieve his maximum amount of success in business. 

You might just as well try to cross the Mississippi 
river in June on snowshoes, carry Brooklyn bridge on 
your shoulders, blow out the moon with bellows, or 
hold back the ocean tide with a pitchfork, as to try to 
be a maximum success while fear is in your conscious¬ 
ness. 

“A business man I have known for some years al¬ 
ways thinks he is going to get the worst of it in what¬ 
ever he undertakes. If he invests in anything he will 
say: ‘Of course, I’m sure to lose. It is just my luck. 
When I buy, the market always begins to fall. The 
good things fly away when I purchase. Failure is for¬ 
ever pursuing me.’ 

“If he starts something new in his business, he im¬ 
mediately begins to talk gloomily about it. ‘It won’t 
go. I have a feeling that it won’t win out,’ and so on. 
He is always talking about poor business, predicting 
that business is going to be bad, and ‘that it will have to 
be worse before it is better.’ There will be a slump, a 
panic, or hard times. He fears this and he fears that, 
and is constantly worrying and fretting about some¬ 
thing or other. He is forever expecting that he is going 
to get the worst of it; that his enterprises will fail; that 
his investments will turn out badly; that he will fail 
in whatever he undertakes; and, of course, good things 
do not come his way, for what we expect tends to 
come to us. This man hasn’t nearly as much money 
as he had several years ago, and his losses have come 
largely from his sour mental outlook, his lack of con- 


348 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


fidence in liis judgment, his perpetual anticipation of 
loss and evil.”—Marden. 

Why do so many people habitually evade making 
positive decisions and then acting upon them? Be¬ 
cause they are guided by fear instead of faith. They 
fear they will make mistakes; that others will gain an 
advantage over them; that unpleasant consequences 
will result. 

A young man who had studied psychology in a city 
where I had been holding meetings, came to tell me 
how the law had worked. If you will not be fearful 
and will not worry; if you will send out the spoken 
word and then rest in peace and ease, what you want 
will come to you by the operation of a natural mem 
tal law. 

Here is what happened to this young fellow: He 
was making thirty-five dollars a month, and trying to 
get more, but he didn’t seem able to accomplish it. 
He had been through the fourth grade at school. When 
he went into the automobile repair business, he rented 
a little tumble-down building for thirty-five dollars a 
month. He soon got business and had to put on two 
or three other men to help him. After a little he 
was putting money into the bank, and became so pros¬ 
perous that he started a second business. The fore¬ 
man at the first place saw a chance to get the business 
away from the young chap. Rents had gone up and 
the landlady had raised the rent from thirty-five dol¬ 
lars to fifty dollars a month. The young chap was so 
unsophisticated and so honest that he never thought 
of getting a lease. His foreman heard of it, slipped 
in, offered the woman a little more money, and got a 


FEAR—MAN’S WORST ENEMY 


349 


lease. As the foreman thought, the first of the month 
he would have the business. 

The young fellow went to a lawyer. The lawyer 
said: “You haven’t any chance.” The young man 
then went to one of the leaders in a class of psychol¬ 
ogy in the city. “We will hold a thought,” he said 
“that all things that are mine will come to me, and 
that no harm can ever come in through my door;” and 
they sent out a good thought for the foreman who had 
perpetrated the trick. The case went into one court 
and then was taken up to another and so it was being 
dragged along. The lawyer (one of the best lawyers 
in northern Illinois), said: “We can’t win the case; 
there is no chance.” The other man said, “We will 
win!” He hadn’t a moment’s worry or fear. 

No matter what comes up in the business world, nor 
how gigantic the difficulty may appear, if you will 
hold a similar thought, as did this young man, you 
will win. The mental law will work it out—not the 
law of the statute books (though a clever lawyer can 
read almost any meaning into the laws on the statute 
books). The law of the mental realm never changes. 
It is eternal, and always works out right. 

Here is the upshot of that story: This young fel¬ 
low had sent out no negative thoughts. One day, the 
landlady sent for him. (The lawyer had advised him 
not to pay the rent and he had not, for four months). 
The landlady needed money, and she sent her son over 
to tell the young man she wanted to see him. The man 
who w r ants to get even with the world might have said, 
“Tell your mother I will come to see her when I feel 
like it,” or words to that effect. But the young man 


350 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


said politely that he would come to see the landlady 
that evening. 

He did so, and she said: “You have always paid 
your rent. I am in need of a little money, and I won¬ 
der if you, instead of the other man, would like to have 
a lease on the building.” The man picked up a little 
stub of a pencil and a piece of butcher paper and said: 
“I will pay you four months’ rent, and pay you an¬ 
other month in advance, and then you write out a re¬ 
ceipt under our new agreement. When he had the 
receipt, he went down to the lawyer, and the lawyer 
said: “Of course the bulding is yours.” 

This is an example of Applied Psychology. That 
young man would not have kept his building and have 
obtained what he wanted, if he had held negative 
thoughts or had had fear within him. I want this to 
be so grounded into your consciousness that you will 
never have one moment’s fear or doubt. 

Fear of death causes perhaps more failures, heart¬ 
aches, and misery than any other spectre which haunts 
the life of man. 

Yet it is as natural to die as it is to be born. And 
after death, what? Still in the arms of everlasting 
love! Then why should we be afraid to die and face 
a God of love? Can such a Creator as Jesus pictures 
have aught but love, beyond the grave as well as here? 
It has been our fear-teaching of the Dark Ages, that 
has jammed our common sense with shuddering at the 
thought of passing through the “Valley of the Shadow 
of Death.’* 

Science tells us there is no more reason for fear 
in death and the seeming suffering of death than there 


FEAR—MAN’S WORST ENEMY 


351 


is in beihg born. The “death rattle” in the throat of 
the dying that is so apt to be elaborated upon and mag¬ 
nified by those who witness it, is only a reflex action 
of the muscles. 

A person knows no more about passing from this 
life than he knows about coming into it. 

When we pass from this life into the larger life, it 
is going to be an ushering into a greater expression of 
love, the same as when we come into this life. 

If there is any time when a home is filled with love 
and tenderness, it is the few months preceding the 
advent of the baby. The mother spends her time 
making beautiful things and planning for what is go¬ 
ing to take place. The name is already selected. The 
father is arranging for the little life that is to come. 
There is no time when love is quite so tender as when 
parents are thinking about the baby that is coming. 
And, when the little stranger has been ushered into 
this new home, the parents rejoice and the neighbors 
come, and the father is so glad that he spends his money 
for cigars to “treat the boys”—all because a little 
baby has come into the home. 

There is the same feeling of gladness when we leave 
this life for the next. The Infinite Spirit, whose love 
is so much greater than man’s has a reception for us 
when we “come home,” that is so much grander and 
more beautiful than the advent of a baby into this life, 
that there is no comparison. The natural attitude of 
man should be to be eager to pass from this life into 
the next, and not be afraid. If we are wondering 
about death and are filled with fear, it is because of 
the teaching of past ages. 


352 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


We should realize in our consciousness that we are 
going to welcome death. Of course, I know it is going 
to be hard for some of us to accept that, but the con¬ 
dition of man is such that, after he has lived a certain 
length of time, he should naturally be ready and want 
to go. As pastor, I have sat at the bedside of the sick 
and suffering who were anxious to go. We must real¬ 
ize that we can have only so much happiness and so 
much sorrow, and that is all. 

We read in the paper, “the murderer to be hanged 
slept well last night, and did not show any fear or 
worry/’ The reason is, he had suffered all he could 
suffer after the murder had taken place. There was 
no more capacity for him to suffer. 

You people who have gone through the same ex¬ 
perience as I have, of putting to rest your dearest and 
nearest of blood, know that after you have been awake 
three days and three nights and longer, being up every 
moment, your nerves have endured all they can, and 
you drop off into a peaceful sleep. You can suffer so 
much and that is all you can suffer; you can enjoy 
so much of life and that is all you can enjoy. 

A little boy likes candy, but turn him loose in a 
candy store, and after he is filled, although you offer 
him a barrel of candy, he cannot eat any more. The 
same is true of life. 

One of the great mistakes of married life (Elbert 
Hubbard says: “Divorce is trying to get more out of 
married life than there is in it”) is failing to under¬ 
stand that one can have just so much enjoyment in 
the physical life and that is all. Carry that to its 
logical conclusion, and we can have only so much en- 


FEAR—MAN’S WORST ENEMY 


353 


joyment in this life and that is all. When we are one 
hundred fifty or two hundred years old, we ‘ought 
to be ready to die, having had all of this life we 
want until we reach the consciousness where there 
will be no death. In the law of psychology, after we 
have had all this life can give us, we are going to want 
something better in the life that is to come. 

Psychology makes no speculation on “what dividends 
will be declared in heaven.” It believes in the “here 
and now”; in the power of the mind, within the soul 
of man, to make of us co-laborers with God, both on 
this plane of living and on the plane to come; and. 
here, on the earth plane, it teaches that God is omni¬ 
present—that is, everywhere—and, where God is, there 
can be no fear. Infinite Love casts out fear and blots 
out hell. 


354 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


CHAPTER XVI 


POVERTY A DISEASE 


Cure of Poverty—How to Double Your Efficiency 

The law of abundance, showing us the way to the 
Rank of Prosperity, is as direct as the pointed index 
finger. There is a legitimate royal abundance for every 
living soul. 

A great deal of our poverty is a disease, the result 
of centuries of wrong living and wrong thinking. 

Nature is most lavish and profuse in her abundance. 
If there is lack or limitation in our life, it is not be¬ 
cause nature has been parsimonious but because man 
has not understood how to make use of and distribute 
the abundance which God has provided. As we sur¬ 
vey the resources provided by nature, we must con¬ 
clude that lack and limitation do not fit into the scheme 
of life at all. Therefore, they are the result of man’s 
wrong living and wrong thinking. 

When we go to the floral kingdom, we find that 
nature is prodigal in making provision for plants and 
flowers, their sustenance and reproduction. In the 
lower animal kingdom it is the same. Under normal 
conditions, all animals, including birds and fish and 
insects, have more than they need for their sustenance, 
more than they can use. In the mineral kingdom we 
find the same profusion, for although we have been 
startled, at different times, by sensational reports of 




POVERTY A DISEASE 


355 


so-called scientists telling ns of the limitations of coal 
and other natural resources, it is true that we have 
such an abundance of all kinds of supplies that man 
is not able to determine how many billions of years 
he can live upon the natural resources now known 
to us. 

One island near Vancouver, British Columbia, we are 
told, contains enough coal to supply all mankind for 
thousands of years. Aside from this little spot, there 
are the thousands of coal mines in the great North 
American continent, not to consider the abundance of 
coal in China and other foreign countries. Other natu¬ 
ral resources are equally plentiful. 

Abundant provision has been made by the great 
Creative Principle of the universe for all of man’s 
needs as well as for the needs of all the other forms of 
life. If we do not have abundance, I repeat it is be¬ 
cause of long-continued wrong thinking and living and 
that this is true, is proved by numerous instances 
where a change in thinking and living was followed 
by a change from poverty to plenty. 

Let me tell you of a family consisting of husband, 
wife and two grown sons. They had been living in 
the world of lack and limitation for manjr years until 
they had lost all spirit, all hope of a prosperous life, 
and all expectation of ever having abundance. This, 
of course, was reflected in their way of living. The 
man became careless about his person: he would go 
to work with his hair unkempt, his face unshaven, his 
clothes unbrushed, and his trousers looking as though 
they never had been creased. 


356 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


A man who is living in that kind of mental atti¬ 
tude, augmented by untidiness, soon catches the spirit 
of indolence. This man’s whole demeanor expressed 
what was in his mind. There was no sprightliness in 
his walk, no spring in his legs and his knees; he never 
straightened up as he slouched along to his work, bent 
over, so that his knees just naturally fitted into the 
bag in the knees of his trousers, and, of course, the bag 
in his trousers became more apparent as his knees 
fitted in a little more snugly each time he slouched along. 

If you had approached their house you would have 
noticed that some of the shutters were hanging on one 
hinge. The house needed painting, and weeds had 
grown up in the front yard. All this was a reflection 
of their thinking poverty and limitation. 

The woman had lost her desire for tidiness around 
the home. The carpets on the floors had not been 
renovated for “goodness knows how long;” the pic¬ 
tures on the wall were “squeegeed,” and the furniture 
was never in a symmetrical position. The whole house 
and its surroundings reflected their wrong thinking 
about abundance. They thought poverty, and poverty 
expressed itself in poverty. 

One day the mother came in contact with some 
literature on right thinking, and she read that poverty 
was a matter of condition of mind—or as we would 
say, a disease. She had by this time had enough of 
poverty’s nightmare existence and she was determined, 
if there was anything to break the spell, that she was 
going to break it, so she set out to change her mental 
attitude. 


POVERTY A DISEASE 


357 


She began to think abundance, prosperity, opulence, 
plenty and riches, instead of allowing her mind to 
dwell in the realm of poverty, lack and limitation. 
Of course, there was an immediate change in her per¬ 
sonal appearance, which, in turn, was manifested in 
the way she kept her house. The pictures were made 
to hang straight on the wall; the carpet was taken out 
and dusted, and this, probably, helped the husband to 
get a grip on himself, for he began to catch the spirit 
of prosperity which his wife was thinking. 

As she went on to clean up the house inside, he 
began to elean it up outside. He rehung the shutters, 
cut the weeds in the front yard and painted the house. 
By this time, the house inside and out, with its occu¬ 
pants, looked like new creatures. Not only had 
the woman’s right thinking changed the condition of 
the house inside and outside, but it reacted upon the 
life and habits of her husband and sons. The husband 
began to take more interest in his person; he was 
careful to shave and keep his hair combed; his clothes 
were brushed and his trousers pressed; and as he went 
to his work, he walked with the gait of alacrity, suc¬ 
cess, courage and prosperity. 

Soon his employer saw the change in the man and, 
naturally, this led to an increase in his pay. No em¬ 
ployer is going to raise a man who is slouchv, slovenly, 
indifferent about his work and careless in his actions 
and speech. So, by the mother changing her way of 
thinking from poverty to abundance, the whole house¬ 
hold was changed, including the husband and the sons. 
Within two years, not only had the husband been 
raised in pay and given a more responsible position, 


358 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


but the two sons, had likewise been given an increase 
in their salaries. 

Verily, poverty is a condition of mind. Think pros¬ 
perity and prosperity comes. Think poverty and 
poverty you’ll have. A mind filled with thoughts of 
poverty, doubt, fear and limitation is no more the mind 
of abundance than the bullfrog is like a mud turtle. 

If we spend our time talking about “keeping the 
wolf from the door” and trimming the fringe from 
the bottom of our trousers, we are liable, by the law of 
attraction, to attract the pack of wolves, and more 
frazzle will grow on the bottom of our pant-legs. 

Thought is like a magnet: it attracts to it the very 
thing of which it thinks. Whatever may be our pres¬ 
ent dominant mental attitude, it becomes a part of 
our being, our living, and our experience. Change 
your mental attitude and you will change your fortune. 

The very first essential in the effort toward doub¬ 
ling our efficiency is to find the kind of work that gives 
us the most joy and happiness, and it does not matter 
what the present cost may be, we will more than make 
it up in the future. 

There could be no higher office tendered to a man in 
the realm, of law than the judgeship upon the Supreme 
Bench. A man at the age of forty-five who had not 
had legal training, but who had always had a strong 
urge to follow the legal profession, gave up his voca¬ 
tion and began to devote himself to the study of law. 
Of course,. it was a great effort to break loose from 
his associates and an assured income on the chance 
of winning success in the practice of law, at his age 


POVERTY A DISEASE 


359 


in life, but the urge was strong, his faith courageous, 
and he made the leap. Ten years later, by the time 
he was fifty-five years of age, he became judge upon 
the Supreme Bench of the United States of America. 

If you are going to double your efficiency you must 
be absolutely sure that you are following that kind of 
work which is most pleasing and delightful to you. 
In the first chapter of “Will Power and Success,” I 
have, in the last editions, elaborated upon the necessity 
of finding our chosen work. There, I have quoted some 
of the great master minds of the ages, as, for example, 
Emerson: 

“Each man has his own vocation. The talent is the 
call. There is one direction in which all space is open 
to him. He has faculties silently inviting him thither 
to endless exertions. He is like a ship in a river; he 
runs against obstructions, on every side but one; on 
that side, all obstruction is taken away and he sweeps 
serenely over God’s depths into an infinite sea. . . . 

In this talent he has no rival.’ ’ 

All things come to us if we are in our right work, 
for then eur thoughts are our allies, and right think¬ 
ing opens the floodgates of talent and ability so that 
the channels of achievement may be abundantly filled 
by the onrushing stream of success. 

Dr. Frank Crane has said that he has made about 
all the mistakes mortal man can make. Well, Dr. 
Frank Crane hasn’t anything on the author of this 
book. If there are any mistakes man has made that 
I have not made, they have been made on some other 
plane than the earth-plane, and I have had quite suffi- 


360 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


cient experience without going to any other plane to 
find some more mistakes that I can make. However, 
there was one time when I was right. No man, no 
matter how full of mistakes, and how foolish, can be 
wrong all the time. There must be some chance for 
him to be right. Just as a man cannot always be right, 
neither can he always be wrong. 

So I happened to hit one thing right after I had 
had a million things wrong, and that one thing was 
that I resolved to spend all my energy, all my time 
and all my talent, no matter what the cost may be, 
upon focusing my whole attention and abilities on one 
goal. Time proved that my judgment was right; time 
proved that I wasn’t always a fool, although all my 
friends and near relatives, except the feminine part of 
my household, said that I was a fool, a double fool and 
a blankety-blank fool. 

After my health had failed twice while trying to get 
an education by overwork and overstudy, I was forced 
to go into the commercial world to earn a little bread 
and butter, buy a new shirt and pay the room rent. 
It was not long before energy properly expended in 
the business world was bearing interest. One man 
whom I was associated with offered me work with him 
and said that I would be a rich man if I would con¬ 
tinue in the commercial life. 

A boy born in the direst kind of poverty and reared 
only in poverty thoughts, who had never had five cents 
to spend until he was sixteen years of age, when told 
that he would be a rich man, might well have been 
tempted to continue the wrong kind of work; but there 


POVERTY A DISEASE 


361 


was the call within, and this call I was determined to 
obey, no matter how many people told me I was mak¬ 
ing a mistake. For when I finally decided, at the age 
of twenty-four, to give up my prosperous commercial 
career, go back to school, and prepare to become a public 
speaker, everybody on every side told me what they 
thought of me. They said I was taking too big a 
chance—I was giving up a certainty for uncertainty— 
I would be incurring debts. 

My immediate ambition was to become a minister, 
and to give up a promising commercial future for the 
uncertain income of a poverty-stricken preacher was 
dire foolishness; at least that is what everyone said to 
me. One man, as near a relative as flesh and blood 
could make, who owes me two thousand dollars (for I 
had helped to put him through school) wouldn’t even 
loan me ten dollars on the money he owed me, because 

he considered I was such a - fool. Despite all 

this I went on. I knew that my maximum amount of 
work could not be accomplished in the commercial 
world alone. “Will Power and Success” was already 
being written, and I had charged and surcharged my 
mind with the great teachings of the sages of old, as 
given in the first chapter of “Will Power and Success,” 
and I believed that they were nearer right than my 
family advisors, with all their well-wishing for my 
continued commercial “success.” So, with a courage¬ 
ous little wife staying by me, a mother with a tena¬ 
cious belief in me, and a daughter who had more faith 
in her father than in eternity, the old associations were 
severed, and after four years of preparation, having 



362 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


spent the little savings' I had accumulated, with neces¬ 
sarily contracted debts, and with my teachers in the 
seminaries thinking me too unusual to preach, I began 
my ministerial career at fifty dollars a month. 

I made no mistake. I am still preaching and always 
shall be, although I am not preaching orthodoxy as I 
had been taught. The world is my pulpit and the uni¬ 
verse my congregation, and so far as the rest is con¬ 
cerned, I have combined my commercial training with 
that of a preacher and now I don’t have to worry where 
my next meal is coming from. 

But it took twenty-two years, from the time I made 
up my mind to become a preacher, until I got my hands 
on the first round of the ladder; twenty-two years, 
while everybody stood off, crying “fool, blankety- 
blank fool” and “it can’t be done,” and it was worth 
the struggle. What is twenty-two years of poverty, 
debts, sneers, ostracism, when you are happy in your 
work and you know that you are going to succeed! 

If we are living in malarial swamps of discourage¬ 
ment and plague-infested bogs where poverty’s hook¬ 
worm is breeding, we can move to the grassy meads 
and the flower gardens of abundance by way of 
changed attitude of mind and thought, backed up by 
will power, grit and gumption. 

“Mind is creative, and conditions, environment and 
all experiences in life are the result of our habitual or 
predominant mental attitude.” 

The next essential thing in doubling your efficiency, 
after you have chosen the desire of your heart, is to 
have the courage and the will power to battle against 


POVERTY A DISEASE 


363 


all odds until you finally become triumphant and vic¬ 
torious. Make the change from that which you do not 
like to that which you desire, and to acquire the force 
of spirit to hang on until your goal is reached. 

Another most essential thing, after you have found 
your mind that you are worth more than you are get- 
be positive about your worth, and then back up your 
opinion as to your value by extraordinary hard work 
and long hours. 

I hardly ever have a campaign but that we hear of 
one or more men who have, under the inspiration of the 
hour, constructed in their minds a raise in pay, and 
then have gone out and brought about the increase in 
their income. 

When you have fully determined what you can do 
and then set out to focus all your strength of mind 
and energy upon that particular kind of work, it is 
high time to begin setting a higher value upon your 
ability and efforts. This may not be recognized the 
first year, it may not be recognized the second, it may 
not be recognized the third; but by all means have in 
your mind that you are worth more than you are get¬ 
ting. But do not “kick over the bucket” by becoming 
arrogant, conceited or egotistical in demanding your 
increased income. 

I believe one of the hardest positions in the world 
for any human being to fill is to be employed where 
one’s services are not fully appreciated; where the man 
is too big for the job. The world will never know of 
the tears that have been shed through long years of 
struggle and effort by men and women who have had 


364 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


to work in a position too small for their capacity and 
ability, who have had to endure the scornful domination 
of an employer or manager, when they knew that they 
could conduct the business or the department better 
than those who were in charge. That is the measure of 
a great soul; that is the test of a victor, for we never 
can become leaders and we never can prove our ability 
to command others unless we are big enough to be com¬ 
manded. 

You may have to wince under the domineering atti¬ 
tude of the “boss” above you for many years, taking 
his insults and slurs because you are a better worker 
than he. You may be the recipient of darts and arrows, 
of mental spear-thrusts aimed against your breast with 
murderous intent by the jealousy in his heart. But 
hang on, grit your teeth, be brave, be noble, knowing 
that the time is coming when you will be “the upper 
dog;” when you will be filling a position commensurate 
with your talent, ability, experience and your ambition 
to work and serve. 

The first thing that an employer usually asks is: 
“How much have you been getting?” Of course, that 
is a logical and good basis to begin the discussion of the 
value of an employee. Many of you will never get more 
than you are now receiving until you set a higher value 
on your services than what you are now getting. (Re¬ 
member, however, as mentioned above that this is not 
to make you egotistical or conceited.) You are to set 
your own salary, and then work with all the effort and 
energy and application that is within you, to prove that 
you are worth the price which you set upon yourself. 


POVERTY A DISEASE 


365 


I know of a man who is a real genius. I have no doubt 
that he was too big for his job. But he assumed an 
arrogant attitude, and talked in a most bombastic way 
about his wonderful ability to his employer and his 
friends, and at the expiration of twenty years he is 
getting no more money than he got nearly a quarter 
of a century before. 

I am not leading you astray when I tell you to set 
your own price, provided you will follow the rest of 
the directions. You are to set your own price and then 
be big enough to fill the job which is too small for you, 
with all the gracious spirit of a man who has already 
attained the presidents position. 

Always remember, when you are handicapped by a 
job too small for you, that no work is small if a great 
soul does it. Let this he your inspiration and monitor: 
that wherever you are, although you may be big enough 
for the job ahead, you will do the best that is in you, 
free from criticism, carping, cavilingi, sulkiness or 
jealousy. 

The next time you are seeking employment, if you 
are a bookkeeper and have been getting one hundred 
fifty dollars a month and the would-be-employer asks 
you what you were getting, tell him with all frank¬ 
ness that your salary has been one hundred fifty 
dollars hut you are worth two hundred dollars. He 
may look at you with a surprised expression, and with 
a question curling around his lips, but he will recog¬ 
nize that you are sure of yourself and the jolt which 
you have dealt him by having the courage to ask for 
more money and expressing the conviction that you 


366 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


are worth it, will make him take a second thought be¬ 
fore he lets you get away from him. A bookkeeper, 
who can earn two hundred dollars a month, is worth 
more to the concern than two bookkeepers ait one 
hundred fifty dollars a month. Any good employer 
knows that. What you want is the privilege of demon¬ 
strating that you are worth more money than you have 
been getting. Should he refuse to grant the two hun¬ 
dred dollars, be big enough to begin at one hundred 
fifty or one hundred sixty dollars, with the clear under¬ 
standing that you will demonstrate to him the value 
of your services at two hundred dollars. If he refuses, 
after you have given him a good demonstration of your 
superior ability, to act according to your verbal agree¬ 
ment, don’t doubt or worry; there is some other house 
that will appreciate your services. 

So long as you are content to plod along in the same 
old rut, you will never get out of the rut. But do not 
ask for two hundred dollars a month when you are 
worth only a hundred twenty-five. 

There are so few people who understand that they 
have the power within them to double their efficiency, 
that they continue to work for small wages when they 
might by the faith within, and the spirit of co-opera¬ 
tion and fellowship linked with great effort and work, 
put their names on a much higher pay-roll. 

I have in mind a man who worked for a great con¬ 
cern for fifteen years; he was nothing but a cog in a 
great machine. He had had no raise for five years or 
more, and apparently, to judge from the attitude of 
the employer, wasn’t in line for promotion for many a 


POVERTY A DISEASE 


367 


day to come. When he approached his employer about 
the advisability of a little increase in pay, the em¬ 
ployer didn’t see it. The man might have remained 
there for the rest of his life in a comfortable rut, but 
he got up enough spunk and grit and gumption to look 
for another job and within thirty days, because he had 
put a higher value upon his services, he went to work 
for a competing house at a much higher salary. 

It is not often that a minister gets his pay raised at 
frequent intervals. I was a minister for seven years 
and during that time I had eight raises, with the ex¬ 
ception of my first job where it was a flat understand¬ 
ing of fifty dollars a month. After that I set my own 
salary and raised my own wages. These eight raises 
within seven years came about in something like the 
following manner. Within two months my fifty dollar 
salary was doubled, but this was never put into effect 
because the little town that was going to double my 
salary was absolutely too small for me to remain in; so, 
within three months, I took another church, at nine 
hundred dollars per year. Before the year was out I 
went to another town where I got eighty dollars a 
month, with the privilege of taking up a government 
homestead; here I again set my salary and when I was 
at conference with the board of trustees, one of the 
deacons said that he would be tickled to death to work 
and get a government homestead, as I was getting, at 
fifty dollars a month. I told him that I supposed there 
were ministers who would be glad to work for fifty 
dollars a month but I had passed that stage. After two 
years of service I went to another place with an 


368 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


understanding that I would supply their church with¬ 
out any given 'salary, but that I would tell them what 
I would expect at the expiration of a few months, this 
being mutually agreeable to both myself and the 
church. This church had never paid more than eight 
hundred dollars a year. I had not been there more 
than a month or six weeks, when one of the deacons 
called upon me and said it was about time that they 
should have some understanding of what my salary 
was to be. I told him that I had not exactly deter¬ 
mined yet, but that it would be no less than twelve 
hundred dollars a year and a parsonage—almost double 
what had ever been paid on that field before. When 
I told the deacon my price, he raised his eyebrows, 
turned pallid, gasped for breath, but didn’t faint. He 
wanted to, but I wouldn’t let him. When he was able 
to speak in plain English after the jolt, he said: “Why, 
we can’t do that; this church has never paid more 
than eight hundred. We ought to get a man to fill 
this pulpit 'for eight hundred dollars.” I told him 
that I was sure there were ministers, he could get for 
eight hundred, but he would get an eight hundred dol¬ 
lar minister; he was now talking to a five thousand dol¬ 
lar minister who was willing, for the time being, to 
serve them for twelve hundred and a parsonage. 
My terms were met. When I left that church after 
another short ministry, I left them free from debt 
with money in the bank—after having paid me my 
twelve hundred and house. We had paid off a church 
debt that had been standing for over fifteen years, 


POVERTY A DISEASE 


369 


together with a number of other debts which had been 
millstones around the church’s neck. 

You will notice that I made frequent changes, and 
for this I was condemned by my nearest friends and by 
my relatives—by the ones that might have helped me— 
because they said I didn’t stay long enough in one 
place. They didn’t know the system of employing 
preachers, and the danger a man was in who remained 
in a small town until he was thirty-five years of age. 
I sensed this in my first year of ministry. I saw there 
was just as much caste in the ministry as there is in 
aristocratic Europe, and that, if I had remained in the 
little country town until I was more than thirty-five 
years of age, I would be dubbed a “country preacher” 
and would never get out. When I finally determined 
to leave the small town field, I corresponded with some 
of the leaders of my denomination, but I could not get 
a single one of them to give me a chance at a church 
in a city. All of them offered me country churches; 
but I had had enough of country church life. 

So I pulled up stakes and went direct to a city to 
see a man who arranged the employment of ministers 
for city pulpits. I had always spent my income on 
my education, for books and other means of advance¬ 
ment, even before the money was in hand, so that by 
the time I got to the city, I had no ready cash and an 
accumulation of debts. I had taken my family with 
me, burning all bridges behind me. I had determined 
that I was going to have a city church, and I said: “If 
I ever get my nose inside of a city, that burg will 


370 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


know I’m there by the time five years shall have 
passed.” 

While I was waiting to see the man who employed 
ministers, and before I was able to persuade him that 
I was the fellow he wanted, my funds were gone and I 
had my family in a boarding house in the city, without 
any money to pay our board. I appealed to my nearest 
kin (one who owed me money) and to another who was 
as near as nature could make him, but my appeals were 
in vain. They would not give me even one week’s board 
bill. I was able, by the law of psychology, to stand 
off my landlady until I got a church. I had to begin 
lower than I had left off in the country. I took the 
worst thing the city had, and I began at one hundred 
dollars a month. I was raised to fifteen hundred a 
year and from that to eighteen hundred and, before 
two years were over, to twenty-two hundred, with 
house, light and servants furnished (and that wasn’t 
my biggest salary in that city). Each time I suggested 
my own raise, and I got it. 

I might have pleased some of my relatives who 
would not loan me any money, if I had stayed in the 
little country town for five years when they said I 
was making too frequent moves; but that five years, 
as anyone will understand who knows the history of 
ministers, would not have helped me to get to a city 
church. 

I have already intimated that a man may ruin his 
future and never reach his goal if he thinks he is too 
big for the job he has, and continually lets other peo¬ 
ple know it. You may be too big for the job—but 
don’t shout it from the housetops. 


THE LAW OF ABUNDANCE 


371 


CHAPTER XVII 


THE LAW OF ABUNDANCE 


How to Connect up with Abundance—How to Have 
Abundance NOW 

Don’t be afraid to meet life’s conditions courageously 
and confidently. Change your thinking: think posi¬ 
tion, harmony, prosperity, growth, and then the wolf 
will slink away from the front door and the fringe on 
your trouser legs will become golden embroidery. 

Thoughts are things; thoughts are energy; thoughts 
are magnets which attract to us the very things which 
we think. Therefore, if a man is in debt, he will, by 
continually thinking about debt, bring more debts 
into his life. Concentrating on debts brings debts to 
him, for thoughts are causes, and he fastens more 
debts on to himself and actually creates more obliga¬ 
tions by thinking about debts. 

Concentrate and think upon things that you want; 
not on things which you ought not to have. Think of 
abundance, of opulence, of plenty, of position, har¬ 
mony and growth, and if you do not see them mani¬ 
fested today, they will be realized tomorrow. If you 
must pass through straits of life where you do not out¬ 
wardly see abundance, know that you have it within, 
and that in time it will manifest itself. 

I say, if you concentrate on debt, debt is what you 
will have; if you think about poverty, poverty is what 




372 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


you will receive. It is just as easy, when once the 
mind becomes trained, to think prosperity and abund¬ 
ance and plenty, as it is to think lack, limitation and 
poverty. 

From the time I was able to understand my mother 
language, before I was able to talk, my consciousness 
was filled with poverty thoughts. The first thing in 
my life that I can remember was discussions, in our 
home, regarding debts and poverty; and about the only 
thing that was ever mentioned in our home for many, 
many years was poverty, poverty, poverty. 

As a child I would awaken at night or early morn¬ 
ing, hearing discussions of what would be done to¬ 
morrow when the landlord demanded his money and 
we did not have it. To help over this poverty condi¬ 
tion, I was put to work peddling papers before I was 
nine years of age, but the money that I earned was 
never mine. From the time I was nine until I was 
sixteen, I held a 'steady job peddling papers and doing 
other odd things besides, yet never had more than 
enough money to buy clothes to cover my nakedness. 
I had saved on two occasions, copper pennies in a 
little bank. One time I had four dollars and another 
time I had five but my family thought that they had 
more right to my little savings that I had and so they 
got the money. It was nothing but poverty, poverty, 
poverty. I lived in poverty; I breathed in poverty; I 
ate in poverty; I smelled poverty; I dreamed poverty, 
and I had poverty. 

Finally, at the age of sixteen, I was able to get an 
overcoat; but my mind was so filled with poverty 


THE LAW OF ABUNDANCE 


373 


thoughts (attracting more poverty to me, of course, 
all the time) that I would not wear this overcoat for 
fear that I might never get another. When I was 
sixteen, I remember going out on the street one night 
after dark with thirty-two cents in my pocket and at 
every step I took I expected to be held up by a thug 
and be robbed of the thirty-two cents. Thirty-two cents, 
all my own, after seven years of hard work! 

At the time I was sixteen years of age I was work¬ 
ing fourteen hours a day in a sweltering city in the 
East. My young system cried out for sweets and 
especially as I worked extremely hard in the hottest 
kind of weather that the humid city of Philadelphia 
could depress its inhabitants with, my tongue used to 
virtually loll out of my mouth for a taste of ice cream. 
I think that summer I bought, on three occasions, a 
five-cent plate of cheap ice cream to appease my grow¬ 
ing appetite for the frozen milk. 

If you think poverty, you get poverty. You will no¬ 
tice that. I thought poverty, and that’s what I got. 
Think poverty and—well, if you don’t change your 
thought you’ll get plenty of poverty. 

In a previous chapter in this book, I have mentioned 
the fact that for daredevil bicycle riding, the world 
never had my equal. When I was employed to do this, 
it was a chance for me, if the negotiations had been 
properly conducted, to make enough money to put 
myself through college—my ambition. But I was not 
able to think in any terms except poverty. I couldn’t 
think in terms of four numerical figures, in thousands; 
so when the deal was finally consummated that I was 


374 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


to perform this great feat for the amusement of 
eighty thousand sightseers and amusement seekers at 
a time, the man who went with me, to talk about ar¬ 
rangements, had poverty thoughts oozing out all over 
him. Those who employed me took advantage of our 
poverty thinking, but even at that, I should have had 
enough money to have given me a good start. 

All that summer I allowed this money to accumu¬ 
late. I did not draw it—I wanted it all to be handed 
to me in a lump sum ; then I was going to put it in a 
bank and proceed, that fall, to school. I had never in 
my life before had as much as twenty-five cents to 
spend at one time, and now I would not become prodi¬ 
gal just because I was “the world champion’’ and had 
a little money accumulating (you might put an em¬ 
phasis on the “little”); but I did do an awfully dar¬ 
ing thing. I shocked myself, as well as I am shocking 
you, in that while I was the “world’s champion,” I 
was going to spend some money; and so I allowed my¬ 
self five cents a day spending money for a greater 
part of that summer. I spent my money for one thing, 
and that was salt-water taffy. 

I had seen other children eat candy. It did look 
mighty good, and when I had five cents to spend, I 
spent it for the “good-looking stuff” that I had seen 
others boys eat, and I bought the same kind of salt¬ 
water taffy every day. When the five cents worth was 
eaten, I had about one-tenth enough salt water taffy 
to satisfy my ravenous candy appetite; but a poverty- 
bred and a poverty-raised young man, with poverty 
sticking out all over him—as it was with me, by my 


THE LAW OF ABUNDANCE 


375 


wrong thinking—could not waste all his money on 
“riotous living, ’ ’ so I would go hungry for salt-water 
taffy for twenty-four hours, when I would take my sclf- 
granted allowance of five cents to buy another sack¬ 
ful. Salt-water taffy, in those days, I think, was 
wrapped in sleek oiled or waxed paper, or something 
else that was in the way when I wanted to eat it. My 
appetite was just keen enough, from one day to the 
next, as I remember it now, that when I got that sack 
of taffy, I think I must have eaten taffy, wrapper, sack 
and all. 

Poverty begets poverty; poverty-thinking produces 
poverty; poverty-living generates poverty. Like pro¬ 
duces like, therefore poverty produces poverty, you 
think in terms of poverty. 

Well, time was at hand when I was to receive my 
accumulated wages, so I got them and went to a bank. 
I went to the bank, however, on Saturday afternoon 
and found that it was closed. That was the first time 
I had ever approached a bank in my life, so you will 
see I was unsophisticated and unacquainted with bank¬ 
ing hours. I thought a banker had to work fourteen 
hours a day, the same as I did. I had no idea that the 
bank closed for half a day, Saturday afternoons, but it 
did. Therein was my downfall. 

I went back and told somebody. I must have told it 
with some gusto, I suppose, because I had never had 
any money in my life before; and even if I did not tell 
it with gusto, I am sure enthusiasm squirted out all 
over me and money thoughts were pouring from my 


376 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


brain, and somebody else caught the thought I was 
thinking. 

I am trying to impress upon you that if you think 
poverty you get it, and you get it good and plenty. 
Here was a chance for me to say good-by forever to my 
dear old pal, “Poverty,” but I had been living in the 
wrong kind of thinking. “The champion of the 
world” wasn’t living like any other human being, at 
least not when it came to sleeping. To have a room to 
sleep in would have cost a little money; therefore, that 
summer, while the multitude was watching me in my 
daring, whirling ride down the dizzy chutes, it was un¬ 
mindful that when night came, I slept on some discarded 
bed springs which rested upon rafters in a loft above a 
greasy kitchen in an eastern summer resort. There 
were no doors or windows in that kitchen, much less in 
the loft. It was a little gable roof and my bed spring 
which was covered with an old quilt, was so near to 
that greasy roof that I can smell grease yet when I 
give my imagination wings. 

So, when I came back from the bank I told some¬ 
body I had not been able to get into the bank. Some¬ 
body knew I was sleeping in a place that could be 
reached very easily without a “jimmy” or a key. That 
night I clambered up to my accustomed spring and 
my greasy friend “the roof.” I went to sleep—I went 
to sleep with my money in my pocket. I awakened in 
the morning, and I still had a pocket, but it was empty 
—the money was gone. I had been robbed! 

So I had to start all over again. Poverty had at¬ 
tracted poverty to me, and it will to you, and it will 


THE LAW OF ABUNDANCE 


377 


to the rest of the sons of Adam who think poverty. 
The way to get away from poverty is to think abund¬ 
ance. 

Think poverty and you get poverty! You would 
think that when a young fellow had had his college 
chance in his hands for the first time, ready to take to 
the hank, and then was robbed of all he had, that 
would be quite enough to lose for one spell, but follow 
me below: I had been bred in poverty, I had been born 
in poverty, I had been suckled in poverty, inoculated 
with poverty, vaccinated with poverty, permeated by 
poverty, had inculcated poverty in the grooves of my 
consciousness; so, when I lost my savings of a sum¬ 
mer, there was more to be lost. You might not think 
so, because I, myself, had nothing to lose; but that 
year my grandfather died and left me a legacy. Again 
I had enough to start me off; but I was not of age, and 
others, who needed the money, insisted upon having a 
guardian appointed and my money secured, from which 
I got twenty dollars and somebody else got all the 
rest. 

Now, I am going to tell you what to do, if you are 
living in limitation and poverty, so that you may be¬ 
gin to spend, this very moment, lots of money, and 
enjoy living in abundance. 

I am going to show you how, by the time you have 
finished this chapter, you can begin to live, have opul¬ 
ence and abundance—in your mind. But this is going 
to be just as real to you as when the material wealth 
is being manifested. You are to begin this very hour, 
practicing abundance and living abundance with as 


378 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


much reality as when abundance is yours one year, five 
years, or ten years from now. 

If you will do what I am going to tell you to do, 
you need never again have a moment’s anxiety about 
poverty. You will live in abundance; you will have 
abundance, and you will be abundance. 

It is probably necessary for you to follow my story 
to the end before you will 1 catch the interpretation of 
what I literally mean: namely, that you are abundance. 
I care not what may be your limitation, what may be 
your position or lack of position, what may be your 
surroundings or environment, you can have abundance. 


THE LAW OP ABUNDANCE 


379 


CHAPTER XVIII 


THE LAW OF ABUNDANCE—Continued 


Practicing Abundance in a “Boom Town” 
on the Prairies 

At the age of twenty-four I gave up a lucrative com¬ 
mercial position to go back to school and prepare to be 
a minister. After more than four years of further 
preparation, then nearly thirty years of age, I took the 
pastorate of a church out on the plains of South Dakota 
at a salary of fifty dollars a month. This was a “boom 
town”—it was called “the most wicked town in the 
Northwest.” When the “field secretary” of our denom¬ 
ination came to the seminary and made a plea for 
“heroic blood” to go to the Northwest—as my custom 
had always been to tackle the thing that was the toughest 
—I went to this “heroic blood” secretary and told him 
I wanted the hardest job that he had—and I got it. 

In this “most wicked town in the Northwest,” a 
church of our denomination had been erected before 
there were any church members there. This, of course, 
was not good business policy, but it was claimed that 
all indications seemed to be that this was going to be 
a “strategic point” for a church. (The strategy has 
not yet been demonstrated.) Lo, when I came to this 
church, there were no church members. There were 
none in that town—that is, our denomination had not 




380 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


yet found them, but nevertheless the church was 
erected. 

It was a real “wide open” town—a little western 
burg consisting of probably two hundred and fifty peo¬ 
ple, all told, counting the fifty-odd floating gamblers 
and a number of so-called sporting women. (Two min¬ 
isters had been virtually driven from the town before I 
got there.) That kind of a town was not looking for 
spiritual advisors: it was seeking to evade the law. They 
didn’t want any preachers to come and tell them how 
to live—they were living in their own sweet way. Gam¬ 
bling was “free to all,” roulette wheels were running, 
and the “sporting women” would drive in automobiles 
from their houses of prostitution at the edge of the 
town and, while standing on the seats of the automo¬ 
biles on Main Street in front of the saloon, they would 
have their drinks brought out to them, attracting the 
eyes of men and advertising what they had to sell. 

This town was perfectly contented to live as it was 
living, and woe be unto the “parson” who dared to 
disturb their chosen pace. 

You have heard of the great hospitality of the West. 
I have heard of it and I have experienced it, but I did 
not experience it in that little town during my first ten 
days. The town was so small that everybody knew 
everybody else’s next move and so, in twenty-four 
'houirs, everybody in town knew that the first move of 
the new minister had been to arrive in town. Within 
forty-eight hours, they had planned that his next move 
would be away from the town, and if he would not. go 
by himself they would help him along by riding him on 


THE LAW OF ABUNDANCE 


381 


a rail. It hadn’t come to that point with the other two 1 
ministers who had had to leave the town, because they 
had been wise enough to prevent the “riding on a rail” 
stunt by beating the town to it arid hiking out on their 
own ‘ ‘ shank’s horses. ’ ’ 

So, with a memberless church behind me and the 
little town’s coldn'ess in front of me, I was somewhat in 
the place of a human refrigerator with the temperature 
going down. When I went out on the street and spoke 
to the men and tried to pass the time of day, they, one 
and all, turned their backs on me, scorned me, or cut 
me through with icy looks. They spoke to other people, 
from the notorious gamblers to the street harlots, but 
they would not talk to the “parson.” . The “Sky 
Pilot” wasn’t needed in their community life and the 
sooner he knew it, the better it would be for him—that’s 
what they thought. 

I came to this town at fifty dollars a month salary. 
It was a “boom town.” In “boom towns,” money 
doesn’t go as far as in other towns; the bare board and 
room for one individual—with no exceptions to the 
preacher—was fifty dollars a month. How are you go¬ 
ing to figure it out? I was a married man and I had 
a family, but my family hadn’t come with me—I didn’t 
have the money. I had paid my own railroad fare to 
reach the little town. My salary was fifty dollars a 
month! My board was the same as my salary! By the 
time I had paid my board I had nothing left for laun¬ 
dry, shoe strings or shirts—and in that community it 
was quite essential that a man Should have a shirt on 
his back. 


382 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


Of course, in the Fiji Islands, it may be different. 
But when you are in Rome, you do as Rome does— 
when you are in the Fiji Islands you can Fiji as the 
Fijians do, maybe—and when you are in a ministeral 
position you would better do as the ministerial breth¬ 
ren and your flock expect you to do; that is, keep your 
back covered, or you will lose their respect—also your 
position—so you will see it took some tall mathematical, 
economic and industrial figuring to spread fifty dollars 
over my board bill, laundry bill, clothing bill and barber 
bill for myself alone, without any consideration for my 
family. 

My family, at that time, had not yet learned to live 
on nothing, but they were being pretty well broken in. 
Just a little while longer, and, no doubt, the fifty-dollar- 
a-month-church training would have brought good re¬ 
sults; but I wasn’t sure that my family was going to 
live up to the training! In fact, I wasn’t quite sure 
whether I could do it myself, and to be a good trainer of 
others, one ought to begin at home on oneself. 

And I began at home. I had asked one good “ church 
friend” if it were not possible to have my board low¬ 
ered because I received only fifty dollars a month; but 
I had made no impression upon him; he owned the 
hotel and he needed my room, if I didn’t. Therefore, 
ais I say, I began training “at home” on myself. 

There was an abandoned house in this town where 
people had once lived, but—they were not living there 
then. The house had the reputation of being 
“haunted,” but who would care about a “haunted” 
house if he could save something out of fifty dollars a 


THE LAW OF ABUNDANCE 


383 


month salary with board at fifty dollars a month! So 
I went to the man who owned the house. He was very 
pleased to secure a tenant. I got the house for nothing 
—you see, it is a good deal better for a house to have 
somebody living in it, than to have it vacant. It lasts 
longer and it is preserved better, especially if it is 
“ haunted.’ ’ 

Having gotten my “haunted’’ house for nothing 
(which equalled a room in the hotel, only it had no 
carpet, no bureau, no washstand, no bed, no—well, it 
was just a vacant 4 ‘haunted” house, without any trim¬ 
mings whatever thrown in), I borrowed a cot some¬ 
where, dug up some bed clothing from somewhere else, 
and moved in. 

I had nothing to move, so my moving didn’t cost me 
anything. Therefore, my fifty dollars didn’t shrink 
much in the moving. You know, a whole lot of things 
could be worse if we would only look at them that way 
—in fact, you see, I was rather fortunate. If I had 
had some furniture to move or a chest of diamonds to 
“tote,” and I could not have raised the price to move 
the furniture or to “tote” the chest, it would have been 
an awful job for me to shoulder my furniture and carry 
it on my own back! 

Yes, things can always be worse than they are. So, 
when things are just as bad as they can be, it is “good 
psychology” to be tickled to death that they are not 
any worse. Our wrong thinking may make them so. 

I was progressing pretty well in the economical and 
industrial program of my ministerial life. I was saving 
my room rent. The next thing was to save on my food 


384 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


bill. I had had experience enough to know that cheese 
and crackers and milk are a whole lot cheaper than 
beef steaks, mutton chops and apple pie. I, therefore, 
put in my own larder. I bought some soda crackers in 
a box, and I bought milk in a pail from the nearest 
neighbor who owned a cow, and I bought cheese at ten 
cents a slice—when I had the ten cents. 

You may not be accustomed enough to ‘‘haunted’’ 
houses and deserted cellars to know just what kind of 
inhabitants really occupy such deserted and haunted 
places. They are good places for rats to live in. My 
house being a good place for rats, there were a good 
many of them. I have always known, since I was a 
little fellow in first grade at school and sang that song 
about “A Mouse Being Tempted by Cheese” that 
cheese is regarded by rats as one of their most tempting 
delicacies, as well ais “the staff o ! f their life.” 

I say I have always known that, since I was a child, 
but that doesn’t make any difference. If I hadn’t 
known it, I would soon have found it out. Experience 
would have taught me, for it wasn’t long before it was 
a scramble between myself and the rats as to who was 
going to get the cheese first. Sometimes I won, and 
quite frequently they won. However, who was the 
victor had nothing to do with the multiplicity of the 
number of rats, who seemed to increase miraculously 
around that “haunted” house, unless their prowess in 
getting plenty of cheese was a stimulant for more fre¬ 
quent calls and an invitation for rats from other 
quarters. 

Be that as it may, there were plenty of ’em. If you 


THE LAW OF ABUNDANCE 


385 


want to multiply or increase a number of rats and you 
do not know how to go about it, I am telling you now 
on the side, without any extra charge, that if you bring 
plenty of cheese around, you won’t be lacking plenty 
of rats. 

Some days, when it was a tussle between the rats 
and myself and I got the most of the cheese, it kind of 
edged them on a little, I suppose, thinking that they 
hadn’t gotten their share during the day; so, when 
night came, and I was sound asleep, they trooped in by 
regiments and stormed the cheese-fort. When they 
had won the battle and divided the “spoils to the vic¬ 
tor,” they were loath to leave, and so they detailed 
scouting expeditions to explore the different parts of 
my room, including my person. 

I never was able to count just how many foraging 
scouts my rodent friends were able to detail in any one 
night, but making a safe guess at it, without missing 
the mark very far, I would unhesitatingly say that they 
had a-plenty. While I did not try to follow all their 
scouting I am satisfied, whether you may be or not, that 
they didn’t miss many nooks or corners where cheese 
might be found. 

If you have never been awakened in the middle of 
the night, when the stars have forgotten to shine and 
the moon to smile, in a “haunted house” with rat tails 
serving as alarm clock, you don’t know what you have 
missed! It is worth fifty dollars a month to try the 
experience, to see if you can stand it. 

Well, having partially solved the economical problem, 
the next thing to do was to solve the spiritual problem. 


386 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


Somehow or other, I have always had a notion that there 
is a connection between the spiritual and the economic. 
By this I mean that it is a pretty hard proposition to 
keep a smooth, easy, calm everyday honest-to-goodness 
Christian poise on a half-filled stomach, an empty larder 
and a small pay envelope. 

I always have believed and I always shall think that 
a fellow is in a better position to practice Christian 
patience and fortitude in a nice new suit of clothes and 
on a full stomach (provided, of course, he isn’t a gor¬ 
mandizer) than in the old orthodox fashion of “trying 
to give thanks to the Lord” when you’re poverty- 
stricken and you can’t face the landlord or meet your 
grocery bill. 

Therefore, it is my candid opinion (although you may 
have an opinion of your own) that, if you are going 
to solve a spiritual problem for yourself, the church, 
or your community, you will have a better start if you 
are not living in a “haunted” house on cheese and 
crackers, with rat tails as your alarm clock. 

But then, if one has a spiritual situation to meet, it 
takes some time to consider one’s handicaps; and it 
soon dawned upon me that the town thinking me use- 
'leisis, and the rats thinking me a p«oor provider, I would 
better move fast to get the esteem and respect of that 
town or I would move faster, getting out. 

I could see, from the attitude like the coldness of frost 
which, in the town’s manner toward me, was fast turn¬ 
ing into the iceness of glaciers, that I wasn’t making 
much progress in storming the fort and taking the town 
captive while I was preaching in the little church upon 


THE LAW OP ABUNDANCE 


387 


the hill to seven people who you might say, were in 
“ Jerusalem” while the town congregated in the saloons 
and gambling halls down in “Jericho,” as it were. 

I, therefore, considered a strategic move. It wasi my 
first strategic move as a minister. New tactics entirely, 
for I had never before heard that any minister had 
ever preached in a saloon, but it appeared to be the 
only solution of the situation. 

There were two men in that town who ran saloons, 
one a Frenchman and the other an American. I chose 
my man, and my choosing proved to be correct. I fig¬ 
ured that one of these men would let me preach in his 
saloon, whilst the other wouldn’t. The man I selected 
was the Frenchman. 

I started down to see the Frenchman in the saloon. 
I started, I say; but I didn’t get there—not then. I 
reached the sidewalk in front of the building, but my 
knees began to wobble, and my nerve to have “spinal 
meningitis,” and my speech “dumb meningitis,” and 
so I passed by on the other side. 

This was a most notorious saloon; it was the ren¬ 
dezvous for men who lived on the plains and who 
thought more of outlawry than they did of citizenship. 
The men who gathered here had no compunction about 
putting another notch on their guns (each time a man 
of the plains killed a man in defiance of the law, he was 
given the privilege of putting a notch on his gun). 

You see this wasn’t exactly a “church” atmosphere 
—it wasn’t the place that one would select, so to speak, 
to expound Scripture. It wa'si more a place ito congre¬ 
gate in, to gamble three months’ cow-punchers’ wages 


388 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


away; to boast of outlaw exploits; to drink oneself 
drunk; to drug one’s victim or shoot one’s enemy. A 
man had been killed in this very saloon just a short 
time before—but he had not been preaching. 

So I tried to muster enough courage to go into the 
saloon. I got as far as the sidewalk leading up to the 
door when, again, I passed by on the other side. I 
could imagine cow-punchers, gamblers and outlaws put¬ 
ting on their belts with their biggest guns on the night 
that I had the audacity to preach to them, and I could 
imagine them making me dance while they plugged the 
floor around my feet full of bullets. 

But death comes to each one of us sometime, some¬ 
where, and it might be just as easy a death talking 
yourself into a corpse in front of a lot of men of the 
plains, as it would be to have the men of the plains tar 
and feather you, straddle you on a rail, and beat you to 
death with their pistol butts. You may take your 
choice—I took mine. One way seemed just as bad as 
another, and, as things appeared, I didn’t exactly care 
which way I chose. The townsmen were going to have 
their own way, and when a bunch of “boom town” 
westerners determine on having their own way, the 
chances are they are going to have it—unless you prove 
too much for them. 

The next time I got to the front of this saloon and 
opposite the door, I made a bee line for the door and 
bolted through it like a shot out of a gun. I didn’t 
stop until I bumped against the bar, leaned over it, 
and began to talk to the proprietor who was standing 
on the other side of the bar. It was a new experience 


THE LAW OP ABUNDANCE 


389 


for me, but things had been moving fast since I hit 
this little town. 

The owner of this saloon was a Catholic, and those 
who have been raised in the Catholic church, no matter 
how far they may get away from its teaching, always 
have a spirit of reverence; they may disclaim the church 
that raised them, but they never quite lose the venera¬ 
tion which has been instilled into their consciousness. 
It will be manifested in one way or another. Therefore, 
this man was very willing to have a church in the com¬ 
munity. He told me that he was glad to have a church 
—he would not want to raise his family in a town 
where there was no church. This was a good breaking 
of the ice for me, and we had a drink—sarsaparilla. 

I finally told the Frenchman that I should like to 
preach in his saloon Wednesday night. I had made 
no mistake in judging my man: it seemed to please 
him, in fact, it did do so. We were standing at the 
front end of a long bar in the saloon. Between this 
room and the gambling room next to it, which was 
equally as large, was an archway through which I 
could see a great big stove. I don’t know that I ever 
saw a stove larger than that one; it was intended to heat 
both of these big rooms, I guess, with the thermometer 
fort}^-six degrees below zero in winter,' and by the 
looks of it, you would have thought it could have heated 
the whole prairie. 

He pointed through the archway into the gambling 
room and said: “You may have your service there,” 
and quite gently added that he would have the room 
cleaned out for me. I thought, of course, by “cleaned 


390 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


out” he meant that the gambling tables and parapher¬ 
nalia would be taken away. I had no idea that he in¬ 
tended to remove the big stove and have the gambling 
room thoroughly scrubbed, which was what he did. 
Then we had another drink—sarsaparilla. After the 
definite arrangements had been made for my preaching 
there on Wednesday night, he gave me ten dollars and 
told me that if I needed any more money at any time, 
he would be very glad to give it to me. 

I don’t know what your opinion may be about 
“tainted money,” but if you have ever been a fifty- 
dollar-a-month preacher with a fifty-dollar board bill 
a month to meet, and had stalled off: the landlord by 
sleeping in a “haunted” house, living on cheese and 
crackers and keeping company with rats, you probably 
won’t have much compunction about any taint on 
money. You will have become used to the taint in the 
mouldy cheese. Anyway, I never did think there was 
anything wrong with so-called “tainted” money, and 
so I took his ten dollars. I took it without any com¬ 
punction, for considering all the mental energy I had 
had to arouse, and the physical effort I had had to mus¬ 
ter up to enter that saloon and make arrangements to 
have the privilege of preaching there, I had earned that 
ten dollars. In fact, if I had been given ten times that 
I wouldn’t have been paid a cent too much for the effort 
expended. 

I went from here directly to the other saloon man, 
for I was afraid I’d be starting off on the wrong foot 
if I went to offer my services to one saloon man and not 
to the other, in case the other fellow would have been 


THE LAW OF ABUNDANCE 


391 


disposed to have wanted them. I might have started a 
town faction right there; I might have favored one 
saloon and not the other, which conld have started a 
great deal of little-town talk; but my judgment of the 
two men was right. The American didn’t want any 
preaching in his saloon. He said that there was “too 
big a gulf” between his business and mine, “that it 
would never do to preach in a saloon;” hut he ran his 
Hand down into his pocket and said: “If you want any 
money, here it is, you can come back for more,” and 
with that he gave me five dollars. Fifteen dollars in 
twenty minutes was a big stack for a fifty-dollar-a- 
month preacher. Rockefeller never got that much 
money in a month—that is, he couldn’t have enjoyed a 
month’s income as much as I did that fifteen dollars. 

Now the next step was to get Mr. Smith, my one 
church “prop,” lined up for the big “show” Wednes¬ 
day night. He was a church member hack East, but 
had not transferred his church letter—he couldn’t 
trust it out there. 

Mr. Smith had a most godly wife, as godly a Chris¬ 
tian as I ever knew. Mrs. Smith couldn’t live in that 
little town. She would come out there every fortnight 
or so, spend a day or two with her husband, and rush 
back to the city. She couldn’t stand it any longer. It 
happened that Mrs. Smith was in town the day that I 
had made my arrangements with the Frenchman. She 
was in the hotel office when I rushed in with all the 
enthusiasm that had been engendered by my success 
and shouted to Mr. Smith that I was going to preach in 
-saloon Wednesday night. No soldier was ever 



392 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


shell-shocked like my news shocked Mrs. Smith. She 
threw up her hands, sank into a chair, and gasped, 
“My God!” Her husband went over to her side with 
the reviving words: “Now, dearie, never mind, it’ll 
come out all right,” and right then and there Brother 
Smith forgot that I was a fifty-dollar-a-month preacher. 
There was something in my daring attempt to preach 
to the rough men of the plains that swung him around 
to be my stanch supporter. 

It didn’t take long for the news to spread—and it 
traveled a'si fast as a prairie fire—that the “sky pilot” 
was going to preach in the saloon Wednesday night. 
The prairies fairly burned up with the news, and that 
little town had as big a crowd come in that Wednesday 
night to see and hear what was doing, as it would have 
had at a regular round-up. 

In all “boom towns” you will find a number of law¬ 
yers, more or less. We had two of them in this place. 
One of these lawyers, upon hearing of my “foolhardy 
stunt,” rushed over to Mr. Smith to give him some 
free advice. The lawyer told Mr. Smith he would better 
call off that young preacher. “He is from the East, 
he doesn’t know these western men, he’ll go down there, 
they’ll plug him full of lead and you’ll carry him out 
on a stretcher.” I already said that my daring had 
instantly won Mr. Smith to my support; so, when the 
lawyer gave his free advice, he answered by saying: 
“Can you tell how far a frog will jump by looking 
at it?” 

I have been called just about everything in the 
world, and I wouldn’t care what anyone calls me if it 


THE LAW OF ABUNDANCE 


393 


will bring to my heart the cheer that this frog epitaph 
brought when I heard what Mr. Smith had said. I 
knew I had won “Brother’ ’ Smith. 

But Smith wasn’t the only one who got free legal 
advice. The other lawyer came to me, saying that I was 
doing a risky thing and that I would better be care¬ 
ful. He informed me that, inasmuch as I had decided 
to preach in the saloon, he had come as my friend to 
tell me what I would better say to my audience. They 
had had one murder in that town a short time before 
and they were not particularly anxious to have another. 

I thanked my lawyer friend for his good intentions 
and his kind visit, but I didn’t tell him whether I was 
going to accept the advice or not. Of course, I didn’t. 
If I had, I might not be here to tell the story. 

If time ever flew quickly, it sure passed in a hurry 
towards Wednesday night. The whole little town was 
afire with expectancy and excitement. There were no 
church members in this town; there was no Ladies’ 
Aid or Missionary Society; but we did have a group of 
women whose hearts were in the right place, who had 
organized what they had called ‘ ‘ The Sunshine Society. ’ ’ 
The intents and purposes of this ‘‘Sunshine Society” 
were benevolent. It was made up of the best women 
in the little “mushroom” town. These women became 
interested, and if prayer could do anything, they were 
going to pray; and so they called a prayer meeting to 
convene at seven o’dlock Wednesday night, that they 
might beseech the Lord to “save the parson,” or at 
least, if he was to be killed, to let him die quickly and 
easily. I believe every white woman in that little town 


394 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


gathered with all the others promptly at seven o’clock 
to hold this prayer meeting for the minister. 

At the appointed itime, down to the saloon I went. 
The saloon man had been doing the thing up brown. 
He had had the stove removed and the place scrubbed 
and the tables taken out. The “joint” had been 
cleaned and a pig roasted, (so that after the preaching 
was over, everybody that wanted it could get a free 
roast-pig sandwich. Those dear women seemed very 
glad to see me alive to eat the sandwidh and at least 
one lawyer was mightily surprised to think that I was 
still there to partake of the bounteous hospitality of 
the saloon man. 

Cow-punchers, gamblers, plainsmen had come in from 
sixty miles around to attend the service; men who had 
gone out on the prairie to “bury” themselves because 
of some misstep in life, or because they wanted to evade 
the law, who had not been to church for twenty or 
twenty-five years, congregated inside and outside of 
the saloon to hear me preach that night. I say “inside 
and out,” because some of the men had not been near 
a preacher in such a long time that they were afraid to 
risk it inside; and so they stuck their heads through 
windows and doors to get an inkling of what I was 
saying. 

If I live to be a million years, I’ll never forget what 
I said in the saloon that night! I have always believed 
that the world admires a man who doesn’t straddle the 
fence or try to carry water on both shoulders, who is 
open and frank, manly enough to express his convictions 
even though others may not agree with him. I did 


THE LAW OP ABUNDANCE 


395 


not mince matters that night by trying to veneer a 
little town and its inhabitants that weren’t running true 
to form, and the men took what I had to say with the 
same manly spirit in which it was given. There wasn’t 
a glass clinked; there wasn’t a word whispered; there 
wasn’t a commotion anywhere. 

When the sermon was over, the saloon proprietor 
said: ‘ ‘We will now take up a collection for Mr. Bush.” 
That sounded familiar—outside of my own voice it was 
really the only familiar thing I had heard that night. 
So they passed the hat, and instead of plugging me 
with lead, they plied me with silver. From that time 
on, there were no more rumblings about what they were 
going to do with the preacher. They did it the next 
day. A man, representing the business interests of the 
town, came and told me that, if I would stay as their 
minister, the business men who dignified themselves by 
calling their organization the “Commercial Club” 
would double my pay. A representative from the Sun¬ 
shine Society also called upon me and said that the 
Sunshine Society would stand back of the Commercial 
Club. I had made fifteen dollars on Monday. This was 
Wednesday, and I had a hatful of silver and my pay 
was doubled, all within four days. It wasn’t a bad 
week’s work for a fifty-dollar-a-month preacher. 


396 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


CHAPTER XIX 


THE LAW OF ABUNDANCE—Continued 


How to Think for Abundance 

Just why have I related this long story? To impress 
you with this: Don’t be afraid to meet life’s conditions 
courageously. Meet your conditions courageously, know¬ 
ing that the power to practice and realize abundance 
is within you right now, and that, by holding a mental 
attitude of abundance, you may have an abundance to 
spend (in your mind) right now. “In your mind,” 
yes. But the spending of this abundance in your mind 
right now, will have as much reality for you as you 
will experience when, later on, you actually materialize 
the abundance which you now are thinking. I know, 
dear reader, what I am trying to tell you. 

I would not have related this long story if I were 
not able to make it possible for you right now in your 
present condition, to practice abundance, own abund¬ 
ance, and live abundance. 

I was on the prairies for seven years, cut off from 
every ecclesistical channel, excommunicated, and ap¬ 
parently buried for life, no minister within three hun¬ 
dred miles to the west of me; and during' all those 
years and the years that followed, I had the joy of 
spending the money which I did not have until over 
twenty years later; and when the time came that I 




THE LAW OP ABUNDANCE 


397 


could give my first thousand dollars without “feeling 
it,” I had no more fun than when, during those years, I 
had spent this money upon gifts, time and time again, 
in my mind. I had dreamed and visualized what I was 
going to do when money would be mine, and I had 
actually so lived in the mental attitude of spending 
this money freely that, when the time came that I had 
money in abundance, I did not realize it. I gave it away 
as though it were an old custom with me. I am ex¬ 
tremely sentimental, and yet there was no agitation, no 
excitement, no hilarity, no ripple of sentimental emo¬ 
tion in my joy of having money to give away in thou¬ 
sand dollar chunks because I had already “owned” 
that money when I was standing off the grocer for 
debts which seemed, at that time, to Tun on indefinitely. 

It is as true as law can make it, that you can begin 
this very instant, by thinking abundance and prosperity 
and opulence and plenty, to live in that atmosphere, 
to enjoy that atmosphere, and to appreciate all the 
beauties and glories of life which money can buy. “All 
that the Father hath is yours,” you need only to claim 
it, to believe it, to practice it, to know it, and in time, 
when this prosperity-thinking shall have brought your 
ship to you and your fortune has actually come, you 
will realize that you had the pleasure of spending your 
fortune years before it was visibly manifested. 

How necessary it is for you to think prosperity 
thoughts, cannot be put into language. The result of 
thinking prosperity thoughts will, however, be mate¬ 
rialized in time to come. Abundance is yours—but you 


398 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


must claim it; prosperity is yours—but you must be¬ 
lieve it. Go one step farther and believe that abund¬ 
ance is yours and prosperity is yours now , and begin 
enjoying today that which right thinking will bring to 
you tomorrow. 

It may take a number of years before your prosperity 
thoughts will be crystallized and manifested. This world 
is a harmonious, scientifically and logically constructed 
universe, run by an omnipotent Power which makesi no 
mistakes. The eternal law of mind is here for you to 
follow and practice, and by living this law, by practic¬ 
ing this law, you will have all that the omnipotent 
Power has to give. 

By thinking in the terms of these natural laws we, 
by their operation, bring into manifestation the things 
which we want. Thought is creative. Thought is energy. 
Thought produces its own kind of thought. Your 
thoughts attract to you the things which you think, and 
if, perchance, you see no materialization of your pros¬ 
perity thought today, never doubt; it is bound to come. 
Therefore, spend your time today, tomorrow and every 
day, enjoying the abundance which you are going to 
have later. Spend today, in your mind, that which 
you will have to spend tomorrow in reality. 

Don’t become too anxious, and never allow doubts to 
creep into your mind. You have, this moment, by right 
thinking, sowed the seed of prosperity. This seed has 
sunk into the Isoill of the universal subconscious mind, 
and because we reap what we sow, you will, in time, 
reap an abundant harvest of prosperity, if you do not 
destroy the crop by doubts and misgivings. When we 


THE LAW OF ABUNDANCE 


399 


sow a seed in the garden, we don’t go out every two or 
three hours and dig up the seed to see if it is sprouting. 
The seed cannot grow that way—you must give nature 
and time their opportunity to grow the seed in accord¬ 
ance with the natural laws of material growth. The 
same thing is true in our mental seed sowing. We must 
allow time and opportunity for bringing forth the har¬ 
vest from the seeds of thought which we have planted 
in the soil of the subconscious mind. To be anxious, 
to be worried about it, is acting on the same principle 
as going into the garden with a spade and digging up 
the seed after planting it in Mother Earth. 

Prosperity thinking will also have a tendency to pro¬ 
long your life, for it is well understood that thinking 
hope and aspirations and success is conducive to 
longevity. 

If we get stuck in the quicksand of misfortune, the 
swamp of poverty and the quagmire of environment, 
we can, while there, enjoy the things of our dreaming 
by owning them in our mind before our dreams are 
realized. When we are drenched by misfortune’s tor¬ 
rential rains and the heavens seem one vast goblet filled 
with blasting storms and hurricanes—if we but under¬ 
stand the law and remain steadfast in our trust, soon the 
rain will abate, the storm subside and the winds cease to 
blow. 

If the future seems as black as the wings of a raven, 
or as hopeless as Dante in his melancholia, the wings 
will become white as the wings of a dove and hopeless¬ 
ness bright as a May morning. Believe in success, 


400 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


prosperity and abundance now, and leave the rest to 
time and the law. 

How this may he done is set forth by Judge Troward, 
in his Edinburgh Lectured on Mental Science: 

The initial step, then, consists in determining to picture 
the universal Mind as the ideal of all we could wish it to he, 
both to ourselves and to others, together with the endeavor 
to reproduce this ideal, however, imperfectly, in our own life; 
and this step having been taken, we can then cheerfully look 
upon it as our ever-present Friend, providing all good, guard¬ 
ing from all danger, and guiding us with all counsel. Gradu¬ 
ally as the habit of thus regarding the universal Mind grows 
upon us, we shall find that in accordance with the laws we 
have been considering, it will become more and more per¬ 
sonal to us, and in response to our desire its inherent intel¬ 
ligence will make itself more and more clearly perceptible 
within, as a power of perceiving truth far beyond any state¬ 
ment of it that we could formulate by merely intellectual 
investigation. Similarly if we think of it as a great power 
devoted to supplying all our needs, we shall impress this 
character also upon it, and by the law of subjective mind, it 
will proceed to enact the part of that special providence 
which we have credited it with being; and if, beyond the 
general care of our concerns, we would draw to ourselves 
some particular benefit, the same rule holds good of impress¬ 
ing our desire upon the universal subjective mind. And if 
we realize that above and beyond all this, we want some¬ 
thing still greater and more enduring, the building-up of 
character and unfolding of our powers so that we may expand 
into fuller and yet fuller measures of joyous and joy-giving life, 
still the same rule holds good: convey to the universal Mind 
the suggestion of the desire, and by the law of relation 
between subjective and objective mind, this too will be ful¬ 
filled. And thus the deepest problems of philosophy bring 
us back to the old statement of the law: Ask and ye shall 
receive; seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened 


THE LAW OF ABUNDANCE 


401 


unto you. This is the summing-up of the natural law of the 
relation between us and the Divino Mind. It is thus no vain 
boast that mental science can enable us to make our lives what 
we will. We must start from where we are now, and by 
rightly estimating our relation to the Divine Universal Mind 
we can gradually grow into any conditions we desire, pro¬ 
vided we first make ourselves in habitual mental attitude the 
person who corresponds to those conditions: for we can never 
get over the law of correspondence, and the externalization 
will always be in accord with the internal principle that 
gives rise to it. And to this law there is no limit. What it 
can do for us today it can do tomorrow, and through all that 
procession of tomorrows that loses itself in the dim vistas 
of eternity. Belief in limitation is the one and only thing 
that causes limitation, because we thus impress limitation 
upon the creative principle; and in proportion as we lay that 
belief aside, our boundaries will expand, and increasing life 
and more abundant blessing will be ours. 


402 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


CHAPTER XX 


HOW TO BE BEAUTIFUL 


How to Develop Personality—How to Be Popular 

Is beauty the first and most important question in a 
girl’s life—more vital than social, business or moral 
problems? The comparative number of letters sent to 
the editor of a popular woman’s magazine would indi¬ 
cate that it is. Last year, says the “Ladies’ Home 
Journal,” 9,846 girls wrote to it about beauty prob¬ 
lems; only 1,776 asked advice as to other personal 
problems—“the throbbing, vital questions that beset 
the social and business life of the modern girl.” 

No one is born to be liked or disliked. There is no 
decree of fate that one has to accept, if he was not bom 
to be a paragon of beauty. 

Any girl can work out her salvation, and make the 
other girls ashamed to think how little they did with 
their advantages when they behold her overcoming the 
handicaps of plain looks and poor taste in dressing, 
while possessing no flashing brilliancy of mind. 

The man who sets out to be a discoverer in the field 
of science, or a creator in the world of art, may not 
have the time to become a popular man in his own social 
circle. But if he be decidedly unpopular, he is sure to 
lack some of the elements of character which are neces¬ 
sary to bring him to the summit of the heights he 




HOW TO BE BEAUTIFUL 


403 


seeks. Unless he is liked and respected by those who 
know him best, something is amiss with the man. 

No matter how poor you are, you can cultivate a 
charm of personality, a wealth beyond the reach of 
money or influence, which will make you welcome 
where the mere money millionaire cannot enter. 

“I know some exquisite characters who, though very 
poor, are not only welcome, but sought by the most 
exclusive circles for the wealth that inheres in them¬ 
selves, beside which the most precious jewels and mere 
money wealth would look contemptible. Never cease 
your self-improvement, never cease to add to your 
mental wealth, to improve your manner, to cultivate 
this personal charm and you will gain riches which 
cannot be bought. 

“What fortunes have been made by men who pos¬ 
sess this charm! Who can estimate the value of it to 
newspaper reporters and correspondents? It is said 
that there was scarcely a door closed to De Blowitz in 
Europe, a private office or a place so exclusive that he 
could not enter it. All opposition seemed to give way 
before his magnetic personality. Doors which were 
barred to others would fly open to him.” 

.Charm and magnetism are things which can he cul¬ 
tivated by taking thought. Beauty is a gift that comes 
from the gods—when it exists it can be guarded and 
improved as any flower can be cultivated. When it is 
absent, cleanliness and health and good taste will en¬ 
able one to produce a fairly satisfactory “something 
just as good.” 


404 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


Sincerity and tact are two qualities which make for 
lasting charm and popularity. 

Charm calls also for tact, for discretion, for good 
judgment, for unselfishness, for generosity, for amiabil¬ 
ity and the power to bring out the best in others. It 
calls for a heart big enough to rejoice in the achieve¬ 
ment of others. It calls for the elimination of all 
jealousy, all tendencies to gossip, all impulses to be 
indolent or indifferent or self-centered. 

Popularity is the product of a charming personality. 

Ella Wheeler Wilcox says: “Therefore, it would 
seem that an ambition to be popular is at the same time 
an ambition to become a worth while individual and a 
practical Christian. 

“The one who desires to be popular should first of 
all learn the charm which lies in listening 1 well; and 
she should cultivate the art of drawing others out, of 
making those with whom she is thrown in contact 
shine to their best advantage. 

“If a man talks well, lead him to converse; if he 
sings well, induce him to sing; and to bring forth the 
most attractive qualities and accomplishments of her 
women friends is a sure way for any woman to take a 
long step forward on the road to popularity. 

“Such a woman, possessing no marked accomplish¬ 
ments herself, and without beauty or great mental 
gifts, stands a far better chance of becoming popular 
than the self-conscious Venus, or the prodigy of bril¬ 
liant attainments who only enjoys herself when occu¬ 
pying the center of the social stage and basking in the 
glare of the spotlights. 


HOW TO BE BEAUTIFUL 


405 


‘‘Unselfishness, then, is the keynote to popularity, 
as it is the key to the highest moral worth. 

“Let your light shine.’’ 

There are fundamental principles which, if followed, 
will develop personality and beauty in everyone. I 
shall not try to enumerate all of these but only a few 
of the important ones. 

Each person should have a winning personality 
which will act as a magnet to draw friends, business asso¬ 
ciate's! and companions to him, and this human mag¬ 
net—personality—is developed by right thinking. A 
few fundamentals outlined below will help you to gen¬ 
erate in your thinking, the strong, dynamic thoughts 
which will attract to you, not only friends, business 
associates and companions, but, with these friends, suc¬ 
cess, fortune and abundance. 

One of the first characteristics which all should de¬ 
velop is a sympathetic nature. I use the word “sym¬ 
pathy” in the terms of psychology and not of ortho¬ 
doxy. We should never sympathize with those who 
may be in trouble or sorrow or grief in the commonly 
accepted manner of expressing sorrow for their par¬ 
ticular temporary trouble. To tell people you “have 
sympathy for them” is to generate the desire for sym¬ 
pathy within their consciousness which will attract to 
them other troubles and difficulties. 

When I say we should have a sympathetic nature, I 
mean we should have a nature so mellowed and per¬ 
meated by the spirit of helpfulness and kindness that 
we can, when troubles and sorrows and disappoint¬ 
ments come upon others, throw our arms around them 


406 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


in loving compassion until they see the very strength 
and glow of our desire to be of aid in their time of 
trouble. 

It is not enough to express our sympathy by words. 
Anyone can learn a formal phrase and say it with in¬ 
difference and with a heart cold as an icicle, but the 
other can see through that veneer. We may think 
that we can fool other people by our soft manner and 
veneered speech, but we are fooling ourselves more 
than others. Others may not know why they do not 
respond to our so-called expressions of sympathy, but 
they do not respond because there is a mental cross¬ 
current which they feel, although they may not be 
able to interpret it. 

Sincerity is another characteristic to be developed. 
Like sympathy, it is one of the fundamentals of the 
winning personality generating in the human magnet 
strong currents that attract others to usi. We never 
shall have a magnetic personality which will bring to us 
friends and abundance, if we are not sincere. And 
there is no use trying to feign sincerity when it is all 
a matter of formality. The vibrations which we gen¬ 
erate, in the effort of pretending to be sincere, when 
it is only a matter of pretension, will be felt by others 
even though they may not be able to account for them. 

One day, I was in the home of a woman who was be¬ 
rating a neighbor in a most unneighborly fashion. In 
the midst of her tirade the door bell rang and lo and 
behold! that very neighbor appeared. The woman, 
who had just been vilely word-flogging her caller, 
opened her door and with a rising inflection to her 


HOW TO BE BEAUTIFUL 


407 


voice, which betrayed her words, said: “Oh, we are 
so glad to see you! Come right in—we would be glad 
to have you spend the afternoon with us.” (At the 
same time, she was thinking in her heart “How I 
would like to wring her neck!”) 

The inflection and color of the voice betrays the 
presence of insincerity. Expressions of sincerity are 
not enough: the words must be backed by the soul of 
honesty and integrity, without which our expressions 
become as sounding brass and tinkling cymbals, with 
the brass cracked and the cymbals broken. 

To become strong personalities, we must learn to 
smile and to laugh. Smiles generate currents of at¬ 
tractiveness. Nothing is more contagious than a merry 
peal of laughter, and nothing is m-ore productive of 
genuine good will than a sincere, hearty laugh. 

And nothing is more despicable and contemptible, 
as well as viciously villainous, than the empty laugh 
of insincerity. 

But I shall not now elaborate upon the efficacy of 
laughter, for that is dealt with in another chapter in 
this book: “Smile! Smile! Smile!” 

Clothes have a great deal to do with developing per¬ 
sonality. 

We may not realize to what extent the color and 
cut of our clothes reflect our mind and our personality. 
The person who goes in for the latest styles, who wears 
the extreme colors of the season develops either weak¬ 
ness or strength, and if it is a will-o’-the-wisp freakish 
fad, it is more weakness than strength, by a long shot. 

Therefore, we should be very careful not to go to ex- 


408 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


tremes either in cuts or colors, for, as mentioned under 
the chapter on “Vibration,’’ color may have a 
deleterious effect upon our health; it also may bring 
wrong vibrations and have a most harmful effect upon 
the development of personality. Some of us, vibrate 
under one color better than another and a color which 
lowers our vibrations must, of necessity, lower the 
plane of our personality for it is by raising the rate of 
our vibration that we raise our minds to higher planes 
and thus develop personality. 

Anyone who has not had a new suit of clothes for 
two or three years feels the effects of his new clothes 
the moment he puts them on. The shoulders go back, 
the chest out and there is more sprightliness in the 
walk and these, in turn, produce a confident demeanor, 
attract courageous vibrations and strong mental cur¬ 
rents for success, prosperity and happiness. 

Many years ago. in our city, it was a fad for all 
young chaps in their teens, to carry a cane. In those 
days when canes could be bought for twenty-five cents, 
it was as hard for me to get hold of twenty-five cents 
as for Rockefeller to “chaw hardtack.” Those were 
the days when twenty-five cents ought to have been 
saved toward the buying of a fifty-cent shirt but, it 
was the fad—the fashion—for all young fellows to 
have canes; anyone could see it if you did not have a 
cane but, if besides carrying a cane you wore a big 
puff tie, it could not be seen whether you wore a shirt 
or not; so, between the two, I got a cane. 

I might say the cane also got me, for as I started 
out to Sunday school the next morning, an awkward 


HOW TO BE BEAUTIFUL 


409 


creeping sensation registered itself up and down my 
spinal column, affecting the joints in my knees and the 
circulation in my cheeks. I seemed to he all out of 
harmony; in fact, I was all “out of kilter” and I knew 
what did it—I did not have to be told—it was that 
cane in my hand. You see I wasn’t used to canes; I 
wasn’t used to carrying twenty-five cents around on 
me all at one time and, having a twenty-five cent cane 
was rather upsetting, so to speak. 

Whether it was because I ought to have had the 
twenty-five cents in a shirt, or whether I was con¬ 
scious of the foolishness of spending my last quarter 
to buy a cane, it isn’t for me to tell, but the fact is, I 
knew there was something wrong. I say I knew it and 
I wasn’t the only one who knew it; everybody who 
passed me knew there was something wrong with me. 
As I walked, I didn’t know whether the cane should 
come down each time I took a step or whether I should 
hold it in the air for two steps; I didn’t know whether 
I should whirl it around as I walked or whether I 
should joggle it in my hand. 

I say I knew there was something wrong with me and 
that other people knew that there was something wrong 
with me, for I noticed that, as people approached, 
and got within a few feet, they looked at me in a most 
curious, wondering way. Their eyes, of course, shot 
down to that cane and then back to my blushing 
cheeks. As they passed, my eyes sheepishly fell down 
to the sidewalk and then, as the people passed me, they 
turned their necks—craned them to look at me—as I 


410 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


continued my meandering with that cane that I didn’t 
know what to do with. 

This continued for some blocks until, what personal¬ 
ity I might have had, became a “cane” personality. 
In the language of scripture, I suppose I might say 
it was a reed cane, in other words, I had “cane” knees 
—I was cane-weak-kneed—so to speak. 

This was lowering my vitality, robbing me of my 
self-confidence and filling me with embarrassment and, 
when all those three things get into your conscious¬ 
ness at once, you lose whatever personality you possess. 
So, as I continued, I thought upon a line of procedure— 
it was an “alley” procedure. I decided when I came 
to an alley, to dash up that alley and get rid of that 
cane; the longer I held the cane, the heavier it became, 
the more embarrassed I felt and the more intently peo¬ 
ple looked at me. 

It seemed a thousand miles before I came to an alley 
and, when I did come to one, I gave a hurried look 
ahead of me to see if anyone were coming and a scared 
look behind to see if anyone were looking, then I darted 
up that alley like a hound after a woodchuck. I threw 
the cane away and came back to Main street again, 
a new creature. Fad—the cane—had affected my 
mind; my mind reacted upon my body and conse¬ 
quently my personality, for the time being, was ruined. 

In the old days when I lived under the law of lack 
and limitation I spent many a quarter grudgingly, but 
so far as I recollect now, I never spent a quarter that 
I begrudged more than I did that cane quarter; I could 
have worn a shirt; I could have eaten a sandwich; but 


HOW TO BE BEAUTIFUL 


411 


I did nothing with a cane but throw it away. Twenty- 
five cents, spent and squandered in those days was 
enough to ruin any man’s personality. When you feel 
uncomfortable, ( , squeamish and embarrassed because 
you are wearing clothes of unsuitable color or cut, you 
will understand that you are; lowering your rate of 
vibration and robbing yourself of personality. 

To have beauty and personality, one must be very 
careful not to be a destructive critic, either of persons 
or of society in general. Our critics are our best 
friends but when we are performing the office of a 
critic it must be with the best intentions, coupled with 
kindness and love, to render service and helpfulness. 

A girl of sixteen had been told that she was develop¬ 
ing a most critical temperament which, in time, would 
surely repel all acquaintances and alienate all her 
friends. She had a great, big soul and, when she was 
forced “to see herself as others saw her” she de¬ 
termined that, if her critical attitude was going to ruin 
her future and repel her friends, she would change her 
attitude. 

She, therefore, climbed to the attic, took a piece of 
paper and wrote this pledge: ‘ £ With the help of God, 
I promise to say nothing against any human being as 
long as I live.” She put this pledge inside a trunk, 
locked the trunk and kept the key. Many years after¬ 
ward, when she had reached middle life, she went with 
a celebrated friend of hers up into the attic and there 
opened the trunk, took out this pledge, showed it to 
her friend and begged the friend to say if she had not 
accomplished her purpose. Not only had she wholly 


412 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


overcome her disposition to criticize others, but she 
had so raised her rate of vibration by saying kind 
things about others and helping others, that she had 
become the most popular woman in her set. 

If our charm seems to be lacking, we should resolve 
to overcome all handicaps, physical and temperamen¬ 
tal, that conflict with the development of charm, until 
charm and personality will be our middle name. 

To attract others to us we must be a good conversa¬ 
tionalist. There are- two ways to be a conversation¬ 
alist. A conversationalist may shine at entertaining 
and expounding, or may remain mute, listening re¬ 
spectfully, with all the attention of grace and manli¬ 
ness, while another talks. 

Let the other talk if he wants to, but if you are 
going to be the one who does the talking, be very care¬ 
ful that you do not monopolize the time in talking 
about yourself. It is the great soul who can let another 
talk and it is likewise a great soul who can talk with¬ 
out continually using the pronoun “I.” 

In order to carry on a good conversation, both par¬ 
ties to it should have the opportunity of getting a word 
in at least edgewise. If two women try to carry on a 
conversation and one monopolizes all of the time, of 
course, the other woman won’t enjoy herself and, when 
she leaves, will think what a dull hour she has spent. 
But, if the conversation is back and forth, they will 
part company saying what a delightful afternoon they 
have had, what a fine show they have staged and will 
buy reserved seats to return to their own matinee. 


HOW TO BE BEAUTIFUL 


413 


There is a possible wealth in conversation alone which 
many a Croesus would give a fortune to obtain, and 
all within the reach of the poorest boy and girl. The 
material of which refinement and the riches of culture 
are made exist everywhere and are open to all. 
You can practice the power of personality every time 
you converse with anyone; you can extract it from 
every book you take up; you can absorb it from travel, 
from the exquisitely mannered, in the street car, on 
the street, or wherever you go. Your whole life 
can be made a school for the acquisition of personal 
wealth, for the culture of self. 

There is ia cheap and temporary popularity which 
comes from the ability to amuse others, from the pro¬ 
pensity to be. generous to the limit of extravagance, and 
to be ever ready with unmeaning flattery, but the reign 
of such social leaders and lions is always brief. 

The greatest pleasure in life is promoting the pleas¬ 
ures of others and happiness will come to you only 
when you realize that it grows by sharing it with 
others. Kept alone it shrivels and dies. By sharing 
happiness with others, looking after their welfare and 
comfort, we, in turn, are generating and cultivating 
that personal magnetism which is the reflection of a 
strong personality. 

PASS IT ALONG 

When joy comes into your heart, 

Pass it along! 

A smile’s a gem you should impart; 

Pass it along! 


414 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


Someone should share your joy with you; 

Someone should smile because you do; 

Someone should be as cheerful, too— 

Pass it along! 

When some stray sunbeam lights your lane, 

Pass it along! 

Some other soul is bowed in pain; 

Pass it along! 

Your smile will save a soul downcast, 

Your word will cheer and hold him fast, 

Your song will echo to the last— 

Pass it along! _D. V. B. 

One morning in Tallahassee, Florida, I was stand¬ 
ing in a drug store, some distance from the door and 
with my back turned toward it. I was looking over a 
selection of books, when the door opened and, as fast 
as electricity can fly, I felt a personality enter. I imme¬ 
diately turned and saw in the doorway a typical south¬ 
ern gentleman. 

No words can explain what I mean by a typical 
southern gentleman.. Anyone, like myelf, who has 
been born and reared in the North in the bleak hills 
of a starvation country, can no more develop the grace 
of a man who has had generations of breeding, gentil¬ 
ity and manners behind him, than can an elephant 
develop the grace of a trotting horse. This man was 
an elderly, white-haired, cultured southern gentle¬ 
man. As I turned, he stepped aside to let an old, bent¬ 
shouldered, colored woman pass him and he, with his 


HOW TO BE BEAUTIFUL 


415 


grace and courtesy, stepped aside, contrary to most 
of the traditions of the South where there are five 
blacks to one white. Then he raised his hat and said, 
with all of the gracious homage that he could express 
if he were addressing a queen, “Good morning, 
Mammy. ’’ 

I found an excuse to come a little nearer to the 
gentleman and fumbled among the books and maga¬ 
zines, unmindful of what I was doing, for my mind was 
attracted to the great personality of this noble soul. 
The whole drug store felt the warmth of his charm and 
graciousness as the arbutus feels the warmth of the 
spring sunshine. When the man had left, I asked the 
drug clerk who he was and, with the expression of one 
much surprised at my ignorance, he explained, “Why, 
that man, don’t you know him? That’s the Governor 
of Florida.” 

What made this man attractive? What made him 
a human personal magnet? What made him a mag¬ 
net strong enough to attract votes to put him in the 
governor’s chair? I’ll tell you: it was the gracious, 
manly, gentlemanly, true and sincere charm which 
made up his strong personality. 

No matter what may be our native physical beauty, 
no matter what charm; we have developed, we may 
be kept in the pink of perfection only by right think¬ 
ing. All elocutionists, all students of expression and 
would-be dramatic and tragic actors become familiar 
with, I suppose, and learn word for word the great 
hate speeches from Shylock in Shakespeare’s “Mer¬ 
chant of Venice.” You cannot read these hate speeches 


416 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


and give your soul and mind entirely to the words 
expressed, without feeling the features and expressing 
in your countenance the very expression of hatred. 

Shakespeare has depicted, as no other human writer, 
the thoughts of a man filled with hate and has put 
these words into the mouth of Shylock. But has the 
student given sufficiently careful consideration to what 
Shakespeare intended to give to the world in his story 
of Shylock and Antonio in the Merchant of Venice? 
Some have thought that Shylock, filled with hate and 
revenge, is a typical example of the Hebrew race. 
Nothing could be farther from the truth. Shylock, 
indeed, speaks the language of hatred and revenge, as 
no other character in literature, but the words are not 
typically Jewish words, depicting the soul of the aver¬ 
age Jew, but are the expression of a Jew filled with a 
revenge and hatred which the Chrfstian had taught 
and developed. 

When Shakespeare wrote the Merchant of Venice, 
it was a very dangerous thing to criticize the govern¬ 
ment ; because the king was the government and 
adverse criticism meant if the king didn’t get your 
head, he’d get your heart and one is just about as use¬ 
less without a head as he is without his heart. To 
criticize the Government meant to be put in jail. 
Shakespeare was wise enough to keep out of jail. 

The Merchant of Venice was written by the great 
Shakespeare to prove to his own government and to the 
so-called Christian world, how far the Christians were 
from being Christians in their dealings with the Jew¬ 
ish race. 


HOW TO BE BEAUTIFUL 


417 


It was the attitude of the Christian toward the Jew, 
which drew from the Jew the volcanic explosions of 
hatred and revenge, which Shakespeare has put into 
the mouth of Shy lock. In those days, a Jew could be 
apprehended by the court without any provocation 
whatsoever, namely, because he was a Jew. He could 
be summoned to appear before the judge and told to 
produce a certain amount of money at a given hour. 
Should he not be able to raise the money, he would 
be informed to get it from his friends and then, if it 
were not possible for him to produce the stipulated 
amount at the time demanded, the court would order 
his hand cut off. With bleeding stump hanging by his 
side, the poor Jew would go out of the courtroom, 
without any medical attention or words of kindness. 

Abuse produces abuse. Misuse produces misuse. 
Hate produces hate. Revenge produces revenge. The 
Christians hated the Jews and the reflection of their 
own thought was manifested in the words and actions 
of the Hebrews. 

Such an attitude of the Christian world toward the 
Jew could be only productive of a racial antipathy 
which never could be overcome. Shakespeare knew 
this; he would have liked to have come out openly and 
told the Christian world what he thought but, if he 
had done that, his writings probably would have been 
confiscated, burned at the stake of condemnation, at 
the command of the king, and he, himself, put to death. 

So, when reading the great scenes from the Mer¬ 
chant of Venice, we cannot refrain from expressing 
hate and revenge in the modulation and color of our 


418 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


voice, as well as the tightening of the countenance, 
but, when we do it, we are not depicting the true heart 
of the average Jew. We are depicting an example of 
a Jew which the Christians, by their hatred and abuse, 
had made. 

Such thoughts, which are the antithesis to all that 
goes toward making charm and personality will, of 
course, produce the antithesis in the human being of 
charm and personality. If 'a man, by this kind of 
thinking (we sometimes call him a “grouch”) has 
lived in such mental inharmony until he looks as 
though he had the potato blight or as though he had 
cholera morbus of the disposition; he also can, no mat¬ 
ter what his age or station, by right thinking, short 
circuit his “grouchy” disposition and face, and gen¬ 
erate a charm and personality. 

SHYLOCK 

How like a fawning publican he looks! 

I hate him for he is a Christian: 

But more, for that, in low simplicity, 

He lends out money gratis, and brings down 
The rate of usance here with us in Venice. 

If I can catch him once upon the hip, 

I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him. 

He hates our sacred nation; and he rails, 

Even there where merchants most do congregate, 
On me, my bargains, and my well-won thrift, 

Which he calls interest. Cursed be my tribe 
If I forgive him! 


HOW TO BE BEAUTIFUL 


419 


Signor Antonio, many a time, and oft 
In the Rialto, you have rated me 
About my moneys, and my usances: 

Still have I borne it with a patient shrug, 

For suffrance is the badge of all our tribe: 

(Showing his yellow cap) 

You call me “misbeliever,” “cut-throat dog,” 

And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine, 

And all for use of that which is mine own. 

Well, then, it now appears you need my help: 

Go to, then; you come, to me, and you say 
“Shylock, we would have moneys;” You say so; 
You, that did void your rheum upon my beard, 

And foot me, as you spurn a stranger cur 
Over your threshold; moneys is your suit. 

What should I say to you? Should I not say, 

“Hath a dog money? is it possible 
A cur can lend three thousand ducats?” or 
Shall I bend low, and in a bondman’s key, 

With bated breath, and whispering humbleness, 

Say this: 

“Fair sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last; 

You spurn’d me such 'a day; another time 
You call’d me dog; and for these courtesies 
I’ll lend you thus much moneys?” 

“God has given you one face and you make your¬ 
selves another,” Shakespeare rightly tells us. 

Some one has said, “Beauty only has the start in 
the race.” It frequently happens that the beauty is 
egotistic, overbearing and makes the mistake of expect- 


420 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


ing to be entertained by her admirers, does not exert 
herself to please and hence never develops the charm 
of manner which beats any mere charm of face or 
form. The plain girl, however, is often superior in 
tact, for, being obliged to study human nature closely, 
in order to get the most out of companionship, she 
learns to depend upon this knowledge in her efforts 
to please. She is not dazzled by admiration, nor is 
she unduly confident when she obtains it that she will 
retain it. 

Few of us realize how much we are influenced by 
a fine manner, a gracious personality; but it has influ¬ 
enced legislatures, it has swayed presidents, it has 
robbed kings of their power. It is true this power may 
be abused; but we cannot deny the fact that it is a 
tremendous force. 

What a man is shows in his face. Strength and 
weakness, resolution, timidity are written in the eyes, 
mouth, nose, chin and wrinkles. By looking at a face 
you can tell what has been going on in the mind back 
of it and above it, just as you can tell by looking at wet 
sand what kind of birds have been walking on it. 

Marden says “Most women overestimate the power 
of mere physical beauty and underestimate the power 
of personal charm. Some of the great leaders of 
French society, who had infinitely more influence than 
the monarchs on the throne during their reign, were 
very plain physically. Madame Pompadour was any¬ 
thing but beautiful and yet the king's influence was 
little compared with hers. 


HOW TO BE BEAUTIFUL 


421 


“Cleopatra and Johanna of Naples had striking 
physical defects which marred their beauty. Madame 
De Stael, who declared that she would gladly give all 
of her learning and brilliancy in exchange for physical 
beauty, swayed the hearts of the great men of France 
with a personal charm which was absolutely irresist¬ 
ible. Charm and cheerfulness make a radiant person¬ 
ality. 

“It is true that physical beauty gives a mere tem- 
porary satisfaction to the eye; but it does not hold and 
fascinate the mind as the charm of personality does. 
There is an intellectual quality in the charms of man¬ 
ner which the ignorant physical beauty never pos¬ 
sesses. 

“The ignorant woman, no matter how great her 
physical beauty, cannot hold the interest of intelligent 
men very long. There is an incongruity and dispro¬ 
portion in the combination of ignorance and beauty 
which men of brain cannot stand; so that the posses¬ 
sion of mere physical beauty, when 'associated with 
an ignorant mind, is even a handicap. 

“The secret of many a man’s success is an affable 
manner, which makes everybody feel easy in his pres¬ 
ence, dispels fear and timidity and calls out the finest 
qualities in all he comes in contact with. Compara¬ 
tively few people have the delightful faculty of being 
able to get at and draw out the best in others.” Good 
manners lend power to personality. 

If there seems to be no place for you in life, isn’t it 
because you are failing to give out to life any affec¬ 
tion? I have in mind a certain girl who looks upon 


422 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


men as ravening wild beasts. Her attitude toward 
the whole scheme of existence is one of hostile criti¬ 
cism. She sees nothing anywhere to like or admire or 
approve. 

If she meets someone who is kind and unselfish she 
persists in regarding that person 'as a strange exception 
to the general rule. Within herself she has created 
a world that does not know kindness or love or unsel¬ 
fishness. And, having created that world, she lives in it, 
without trying to give anything of help or service to 
the tangible world that lies about her. 

She persists in regarding herself as an unhappy 
and lonely creature—and this in spite of the fact that 
she possesses one friend whom she knows she can trust, 
one friend who is loyal and kind, one friend for whom 
she feels affection and in whom she can place faith. 

It never occurs to her morbid, little soul that she 
owes something to that friendship, that, because some¬ 
one worth while cares for her, she has even at the 
moment of her greatest unhappiness a place in life and 
that she is of use to the world, in fact and in poten¬ 
tiality, because she has the friendship of a fine and 
admirable soul. 

Among the truly popular girls whom I have known, 
one stands out pre-eminently. I never knew anybody 
who did not find her lovable. Once, during her sopho¬ 
more year in high school, a group of her chums were 
discussing mottoes and naming their favorites. “Hitch 
your wagon to a star” and “To the stars through dif¬ 
ficulties” were favored. Turning to Jessie, someone 
said,"“Haven’t you a motto?” “Yes,” she said, “it is 


HOW TO BE BEAUTIFUL 


423 


this: ‘Me last!’” “What do you mean by that?” 
the others asked. “That’s my motto, and I think it is 
a good one.” “But what does it mean?” Then Jessie 
explained: “It means just what it says: ‘Me last.’ 
That is, I am to think of myself last; I am to put every¬ 
one else ahead of me, and then look after myself when 
everybody else is taken care of. See?” The girls saw. 
And they knew that right there lay the secret of Jes¬ 
sie’s popularity—she lived up to her motto. She was 
always looking out for someone else, never for her¬ 
self. The girls realized that in some way Jessie was 
always taken care of. “Maybe that’s why,” they 
decided. Looking after the wants and needs of others 
develop an attractive personality. 

To say that you have no friends is to admit that 
you do not deserve friends. Everybody who deserves 
love gets it. Some young people have fewer friends 
than they will have after they have learned to be 
more approachable and responsive. However, there 
is no one who is not encased in a rind of selfishness but 
who has some one to love and to love him. 

If you have no friends or fewer friends than you 
think are your due, don’t decide that this is a heartless 
old world and that it is useless to sue for its favor. In¬ 
stead, find out where the difficulty lies. Perhaps it 
lies in bad manners. Many a potential friendship is 
blighted in the bud, because a young man has not 
learned good table manners. Perhaps some fault you 
fail to notice because of long usage, stands in the 
way of your winning the esteem and liking that you 
crave. 


424 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


Get friends! Yon need them, both for your best 
development and to prove to yourself that you are 
worthy of friendship. Sincere binding friendship tends 
to make a strong personality. 

A young man I know went home to tell his mother 
of his engagement. He was enthusiastic. “ Mother, I 
•assure you I have made no mistake; she is the most 
popular girl in town.” “Why?” asked the mother. 
“Oh, there are all sorts of reasons. Wait till you know 
her.” “Is she beautiful?” “No, I do not believe she 
is so very beautiful, but you will surely love her. ’ ’ The 
girl went West to visit the stately old lady who was 
to be her mother-in-law. A few days later the mother 
had a heart-to-heart talk with her son. “I could not 
have chosen a wife for you so well as you have done for 
yourself,” she said, heartily. “She deserves to be the 
most popular girl in town.” “What is it you like 
about her?” asked the boy, gratefully. “Of course I 
know what she is to me but why is it that everybody 
loves her?” “Simply,” said the mother gravely, “be¬ 
cause she is so lovable. I have watched her closely. 
I had an ideal of the wife I wanted for my boy and 
she fills it—perfectly. She is sweet and unselfish. 

“You see it in little things and she does these little 
things as she has been doing them all her life. They 
are second nature to her. She sees to it that every¬ 
body who is older or frailer than she has the most 
comfortable chair before she takes a seat. Children 
snuggle up to her; they know what that smile of hers 
means. 


HOW TO BE BEAUTIFUL 


425 


“She says ‘Thank you’ to everybody when she re¬ 
ceives the slightest sort of favor and ^he asks a 
servant for a service as politely as she would request 
it of me. Invariably she says ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you’ 
over the telephone. When I step off or on a car it is 
always ahead of her and her strong young hand is at 
my elbow. All day long she is saving me steps in a 
kindly, unobtrusive way.” The young fellow’s face 
shone with happiness. “Mother,” he confessed, “I 
guess I must be blind; I have scarcely noticed one of 
these things. All I have felt is her general lovable¬ 
ness.” “These, my boy, are the sum total of her lov¬ 
ableness and the reason why she is the most popular 
girl in town.” 

Popularity and personality are twins. One helps to 
make the other. 

When you have earned your popularity you will 
discover that you have won the thing that human 
nature craves most in all the world. The great secret 
of popularity is to deserve it. And the great jewel of 
popularity is this: 

To be popular is to be loved. And love is the one 
thing that all humanity craves supremely. So what¬ 
ever of effort is the price of popularity, is it not well 
worth paying? 

If you are not popular—if your face does not show 
God smiling through—you can by paying the price 
acquire popularity and also achieve the beauty of face 
that reflects a kind heart. 

Those who think such thoughts as I have outlined 
above, are bound to become charming personalities, 


426 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


and will attract friends, success, prosperity and power 
and popularity to them. 

To the girls who intend to become popular by fol¬ 
lowing the above directions, I should like to say this 
in passing, with all the emphasis that I am able to 
convey, that the popular girl is very often the girl 
wtho is most susceptible to the wiles of men, posing as 
sheep but masquerading in wolf’s clothing. She is very 
often the girl who has more temptations thrust upon 
her than other girls, and, because of her popularity, 
she may feel it will wane unless she surrenders to some 
of the evil suggestions and false promises of men. 

There is one safe way for the popular girl to follow 
who would be sure that men have no sinister motives. 
When a young man asks to spend the evening with her 
she should say she would be very glad indeed and 
would know that her mother would be delighted to 
have him comie to dinner and spend the evening with 
the family. If there are any unworthy purposes in the 
mind of a man he may come the first time and the 
second time to spend the evening with the family but, 
if his actions are prompted by sinister motives, it is 
not probable that he will come the third or fourth 
time. 

Some witty writer once said: “You cannot always, 
sometimes, generally tell.” And this is borne in upon 
most of us all the time. As for example: A certain 
pretty California girl looked as young at thirty as she 
did at twenty. And she spent so much time on her 
veranda, and in her garden, planting and pruning and 


HOW TO BE BEAUTIFUL 


427 


fussing over her flowers, that the neighbors all said she 
was as shallow as she was pretty. She was certainly 
not earnest. Pretty, yes, but like a butterfly, they 
agreed. They mourned for her if trouble should come. 

And then it came, like a flash: a great tragedy. She 
lost her husband: then her father: and then her little 
son, all in one year. The next year she lost her in¬ 
come. She continued to look pretty and to smile. But 
she went to work. She worked and she accomplished. 
She had three little girls to care for and educate and 
she did it. But the amazing part of the whole matter, 
to her neighbors, was that she continued to be just as 
pretty of face and just as attractive in her dress as 
ever and just as smiling. 

You see she felt it would be seflflsh to be sad of face 
when her little girls depended upon her for cheer. 
“You cannot always, sometimes, generally tell!’ y The 
butterfly sometimes turns out to be a bee ! A courageous 
soul generates personality. 

Any person, after the age of forty, is responsible 
for the face he or she possesses. In the days of the 
Civil War, a friend of a member of Lincoln’s cabinet 
asked the cabinet member to appoint a certain main to a 
political office. The cabinet member refused to do so 
on the grounds that he “did not like the face of the 
desired appointee.” The friend said, “That is not 
fair—what right have you to judge a man by his face?” 
To which the cabinet member replied, “Any man is 
responsible for the face he has, after he is forty years 
of age.” This is absolutely correct. 


428 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


Our face reflects our thoughts; our thoughts make 
us, and our thoughts impress the countenance as a 
sculptor’s chisel carves the features in the block of 
marble. 

We have people, in every campaign I conduct, whose 
features are entirely made over in a single day; others 
within a week. Change our mind and we change our 
features; change our thoughts and we change our 
countenance; change our mind and change our 
thoughts, and we change the rate of our vibration; 
change the rate of our vibration and we develop per¬ 
sonality. 

I recall a certain woman who had been racked by 
pain foir forty-two years. The doctors had been 
unable to relieve her suffering, and the torture she 
continually suffered had imprinted lines of care and 
anguish upon her face. This woman having received 
instantaneous healing in one of our healing classes, 
the next day went down the street with friend after 
friend stopping her to ask what was the matter with 
her: she was radiant, she was beautiful. The change 
was caused through her mental condition. Suffering 
had stamped lines upon the features of the dear woman 
and, when the suffering was gone, her countenance 
was changed to one of joy. 

Any thought which we entertain is reflected in our 
countenance: envy, hatred, jealousy, joy, sorrow, ill 
health, trouble, inharmony, friction, discord, financial 
troubles, fear, lack, limitation, insincerity or sympathy, 
kindness, love, harmony, health, growth, prosperity, 


HOW TO BE BEAUTIFUL 


429 


success, good-will, cheer—all have their respective reg¬ 
istration upon the features of the person entertaining 
such thoughts; therefore, change your thoughts and 
you change your face; change your thoughts and you 
change your rate of vibration; change your rate of 
vibration and you change your personality. 

If we have been disciples of the creed of right think¬ 
ing, advancing years make us more beautiful and the 
chastening hand of time makes us only more lovely 
and lovable. 

Physical beauty is not the only essence of charm in 
personality: a fair, beautiful skin stretched over some 
flesh and bones, doesn’t always make a beautiful per¬ 
son, a charming manner or a strong personality. Per¬ 
sonality consists in right thinking and right thinking 
makes a great soul. Beauty is right thinking expressed 
in a charming personality. Abraham Lincoln, for years, 
was considered awkward and homely. But we have 
evidence to convince us that Abraham Lincoln’s awk¬ 
wardness was traceable to his height and size rather 
than to his physical movements. 

He was a tall man and, when he sat down in the 
ordinary chair made for the ordinary person, his knees 
shot upward instead of being at right angles with his 
body. This gave him the appearance of awkwardness; 
but Abraham Lincoln Was essentially a man of grace, of 
beauty and charm because of his great soul. 

Abraham Lincoln has for the present generation a 
personality more attractive than it had for his con¬ 
temporaries sixty years ago, in fact, the farther away 


430 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


we are from- his time, the more we appreciate and love 
his wonderful charm., beauty and personality. Speak¬ 
ing from the angle of physiognomy, Abraham Lincoln 
might not have taken first prize in a beauty show but, 
speaking from what is real personality—a soul shining 
through the features of the body—Abraham Lincoln 
was one of the world’s outstanding personalities. He 
was a strong, magnetic personality because of the soul 
he had. 

Your beauty and your charm and your personality 
do not depend entirely upon your having the features 
of a beautiful “first-prize taker;” they do depend upon 
the soul back of them. The soul is made by sympathy, 
sincerity, kindness, helpfulness, unselfishness and love. 
Anyone, no matter what may be his station in life or 
what his physical handicap, can, with effort, overcome 
any physical defects and deficiencies and develop a 
most wonderful, charming personality. 

Charm and personality are not beauty—skin deep— 
they are the outgrowth of the soul. Anyone can have 
a great soul and anyone who is a great soul has a 
strong personality. 

Now I am going to tell you how you may be able to 
become beautiful in a very short space of time. All of 
the foregoing fundamentals are, if observed, bound to 
make any person good looking and show the pos¬ 
session of both a great soul and the spirit of universal 
beauty. It takes most of us a long time to make our 
face beautiful but by continually charging the sub¬ 
conscious mind, we may so alter our looks as to be¬ 
come beautiful over night or within a very short time. 


HOW TO BE BEAUTIFUL 


431 


For immediate practical purposes, observance of the 
following will bring about truly marvelous results: 

As you go to sleep at night the last thing you think 
about should be beauty, charm, personality, unselfish¬ 
ness, joy, prosperity, happiness, service and harmony. 
Take some such affirmation as this: 

I am filled with abundant, ever-present spirit of 
beauty, charm, youth, and prosperity; 
or 

I am charm, I am personality; 
or 

The Spirit of the all-pervading eternal youth is this 
moment flowing through me. And I am perpetual 
charm, youth and personality; 
or 

God’s spirit is smiling through me. 

A certain girl had been reared in a home of affluence, 
but had always been considered in the family circle as 
the “ugly duckling.” Her sisters were physical beau¬ 
ties but so far as native beauty was concerned, she 
seemed to have suffered a severe handicap. All her 
life she had been tortured by the family, constantly 
comparing her with her sisters to her disadvantage. 
She didn’t seem to attract the young men as did the 
sisters. She wasn’t the most noticed girl in her circle 
of acquaintances and she was no beauty magnet. 

One by one all her sisters married, leaving her alone 
with the parents. Then the father died and, through 


432 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


reverses, the family fortune was lost and the poor 
“ugly duckling” had to go out to make her own liv¬ 
ing. 

She had read that the charging; of the subconscious 
mind would change a person’s features and she decided 
that she was going to put this report to the test, so she 
took the affirmation each night as she went to sleep: 

“God is smiling through me.” 

She secured a position in a department store in 
the city and, after having been there about a year— 
all the time taking her affirmation each night—the 
president of a college of the city called at the depart¬ 
ment store one day and asked her if he might spend 
the evening; with her. He had known her many years 
before when she had gone through the college where 
he was president. 

He was one of these practical educators, filled with 
more pedagogy than with sentiment. You might say 
that he was pedagogically sentimental-minus. He had 
been too busy all of his life swallowing the contents of 
textbooks) and managing the affairs of the institution 
to give any thought as to how a man might woo and win 
his bride. 

Love, to him, was more of a matter-of-fact, ordi¬ 
nary, cold-blooded business proposition, so, when he 
came that night, he came with an idea of settling the 
“eternal question” right then and there and—that’s 
what he did. Without any preliminaries whatsoever, 
he put his silk hat on the rack and his gold headed 


HOW TO BE BEAUTIFUL 


433 


cane gently into the umbrella stand; then adjust¬ 
ing his spectacles, pulling down his vest and straight¬ 
ening his coat, he stepped into the parlor, gazed at the 
young woman and blurted right out, “Miss Smith, will 
you do me the honor to become my wife?” 

He settled it right then and there. He might have 
settled it differently if he had talked to some other 
woman! This was a most gracious woman. She had 
been taking for a whole year the affirmation “God is 
smiling through me.” She had a soul just as sweet 
as the spirit eternal itself and, when she was so unex¬ 
pectedly—it is always unexpected, you know—'held up 
as by a highwayman lover, you might say, she was 
flabbergasted but she was more than flabbergasted; 
she was greatly embarrassed. She had endured many 
unfavorable comments about her homely looks before 
this but this apparent sarcasm was the last straw. 
“Why, Doctor,” she exclaimed, “you surely do not 
intend to embarrass me like this, you do not want me 
to be your wife. Surely you know that you should 
have some woman to be your companion and helper 
who is beautiful and has charm and personality. I 
forgive you for your abruptness because I know you 
did not mean it.” 

I say that he settled it then and there. He did, 
but he had to have another little speech before it was 
completely settled. He wasn’t used to making love 
(anyone could tell that by the way he proposed), and 
he wasn’t used, of course, to women saying “yes” or 
“no.” He just took it as a matter of fact, that she 


434 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


was going to say “yes” right off the reel and so, he 
was as flabbergasted as she was. His jaw fell, his knees 
bumped together, his diaphragm sunk in, his stom¬ 
ach shook and, when he could get enough strength to 
speak, he said, “Why, I—I—I do not intend to embar¬ 
rass you, indeed I don’t, I really mean it. Don’t you 
know what the city is saying about you?” 

She didn’t know w'hat the city was saying; about 
her. It had said so many unkind things during the 
years that had passed that she wasn’t particularly 
anxious to hear what new things it was saying and so, 
she truthfully told the good president that she was un¬ 
aware of the latest things the city was saying. Where¬ 
upon the good doctor regained his manliness, his 
pedagogically native instinct for mating and said, 
with all the grace of a Beau Brummel, or a Bobby 
Burns, “Why, my dear, everybody in the city is speak¬ 
ing about your beauty. It is in the public eye and on 
the public tongue that you are the most beautiful 
woman in the city and I am asking now, the most 
charming personality it is my good fortune to know, 
to become the wife of the president of our college.” 

An affirmation taken each night for one year had 
produced results. There is no reason in the world 
why people cannot be beautiful, have friends, be 
showered with love and have a strong personality, 
which will attract to them all the good things that life 
can bestow. Right thinking both day and night, is 
as necessary for our growth, happiness, health and 
peace as eating and sleeping. Think right and all is 
yours. 


HOW TO BE BEAUTIFUL 


435 


Here is an affirmation in rhyme that will produce 
magic results: 

THINK RIGHT. 

Think smiles, and smiles shall be; 

Think doubt, and hope will flee. 

Think love, and love will grow; 

Think hate, and hate youTl know. 

Think good, and good is here; 

Think vice—its jaws appear! 

Think joy, and joy ne’er ends; 

Think gloom, and dusk descends. 

Think faith, and faith’s at hand; 

Think ill—it stalks the land. 

Think peace, sublime and sweet, 

And you that peace will meet, 

Think fear, with brooding mind, 

And failure’s close behind. 

Think this: “I’m going to win!’’ 

Think not on what has been. 

Think “Vict’ry’’; think “I can!’’ 

Then you’re a “winning man!” 

-From Inspirational Poems, by David V. Bush. 


436 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


CHAPTER XXI 

THE CHEMISTRY OF EMOTION 

Chemistry of Emotion—Its Physiological and Psy¬ 
chological Effects—How Your Thought 
Power Brings Success, Friends, 

Prosperity and Health 

It is well-known today that every mental change is 
preceded and followed by physical changes. If a 
man is struck in the face or is insulted to the point of 
an outburst of passion, his mind is instantly charged 
with an angry thought, but the effect does not end 
there. He may clench his fist, tremble, his features 
become pallid, his brow darkened, and the action of the 
heart become convulsive. What did all this? The 
blow or the affront? Not at all. But the effects of 
the blow and the affront caused the action upon the 
man’s mind. An affront—an insult—will hurt no one 
unless the person allows it attention. 

In an extreme case of anger, the angry thought is 
followed by mental and chemical changes in the blood. 
The gastric juice is not secreted—the stomach and in¬ 
testines become paralyzed, so that the digestion is not 
only impaired but sometimes wholly stopped. 

We know of a woman who, while eating, received a 
message of grief which was so prostrating that a physi¬ 
cal change was produced in the body and blood, and 
the dinner, which she was eating when the message 
was received, not being digested, became caked. The 
woman was dead within twenty-four hours. 




THE CHEMISTRY OF EMOTION 


437 


What did this? The message of grief—not at all. 
A message has no effect on anyone unless the person 
allows it. It was the message acting upon the mind 
and the mind registering fear, sorrow and grief, creat¬ 
ing a chemical action in the blood and body which 
stopped the proper functioning of the digestive organs. 
It was thought which killed the woman—not that meal, 
for she had eaten many meals before—not the message, 
for there were other people at the table who heard 
the message, but it was the effect of the message upon 
her mind and the mind, reacting to the thought, pro¬ 
duced death. We are what we are by virtue of what 
we think. 

L. E. Emerson, in his book on “Nervousness,” says: 

In anger, fear or rage, there is almost instantly deposited 
in the blood through the action of the adrenal glands a sub¬ 
stance called adrenalin, which increases blood sugar, increases 
breathing capacity and circulation, and increases the rapidity 
of clotting of the blood. 

We can overcome any experience of life, no matter 
how deadly the surrounding conditions and circum¬ 
stances, providing we maintain the proper attitude of 
mind. 

And every thought which we think is preceded and 
followed by physical changes. Right thinking pro¬ 
duces health, success and prosperity—wrong thinking 
produces the opposite. 

It does make a difference what you think. 

Sometimes you hear the contrary asserted and all 
that matters is what you do; that your opinions are 
nobody’s business and so forth. 


438 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


“Your ideas are of the utmost importance. What is 
in your mind directly affects the work of your hands. 
What you believe alters what you see and hear. 

“In fact, every sensation, every fact coming into 
your brain mixes with the contents already there and 
forms a sort of chemical compound with the notions 
on hand; and it is this compound, this combination of 
actual fact and previous conviction, which finally gets 
into your ego and forms your conclusion. 

“So your first duty is not to get the facts and to 
see the truth. Your first duty is to prepare your¬ 
self to do this. If your mind is full of false ideas, if it 
is clouded with superstition or twisted by false senti¬ 
ment or all hard and brittle because of some non-fact 
to which you have given your “faith” from a sense of 
duty, you are entirely incapable of using the truth. 

“Clean up inside.”—Dr. Frank Crane. 

There is now on foot a scheme to suggest sentiment 
or emotions by odors. There is an odor for every emo¬ 
tion, if it could only be found out. A certain Italian 
is now working in Italy on a “symphony of odors.” 
You know how you associate an odor with some place. 
Heliotrope, for instance, has a wonderful effect on me. 
Should a symphony of odors be scientifically developed, 
we may get as much from it as from sight. It will 
then be possible, in conjunction with what you see on 
the screen, to shoot out an odor into the auditorium 
which will produce the same effect as sad music, such 
as Beethoven used to play. 

That a normal mind is really the basis of good diges¬ 
tion is shown by the remarkable sensitiveness of the 


THE CHEMISTRY OF EMOTION 


439 


digestive processes to mental conditions. Sudden sor¬ 
row, bad news, disaster, great losses of property or 
friends, great disappointments not only arrest all the 
digestive processes but even suspend the secretion of 
the gastric juices. 

It has been shown that when the gastric follicles 
are distended and the gastric juices flow freely from 
them, when one is hungry and eating with great relish, 
the sudden receipt of bad news completely reverses 
the digestive processes. The gastric glands immedi¬ 
ately become parched, dry, feverish; and food will 
remain in the stomach for many hours without being, 
acted upon by the digestive processes which were abso¬ 
lutely suspended. 

The digestion seems to be dependent upon the con¬ 
dition of the mind. Often our passing moods hasten 
or retard digestion. 

We frequently hear people, especially delicate 
women who have nervous dyspepsia, say that they do 
not understand how they can go out to late suppers 
or banquets and eat heartily all sorts of incongruous 
foods without feeling any inconvenience afterwards. 

They do not realize that it is due to the change in 
their mental attitude, occasioned by a happy evening. 
They have had a good time; they have enjoyed them¬ 
selves. The lively conversation, the jokes which caused 
them to laugh heartily, the bright, cheerful environ¬ 
ment completely changed the mental attitude and, of 
course, these conditions were reflected in the digestion 
and every other part of the system. Laughter and 
good cheer are enemies of dyspepsia. Anything which 


440 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


will divert the dyspeptic’s mind from his ailments will 
improve his digestion. When they were at home 
worrying over their health, swallowing a little dys¬ 
pepsia with every mouthful of food, of course these 
women could not assimilate their food; but, when they 
were having a jolly good time, they forgot their ail¬ 
ments and were surprised afterwards to find that they 
had enjoyed their food. The whole process is mental. 

“People who go to health resorts attribute their 
improvements to change of air or to the waters they 
drink, when, as a matter of fact, it has probably been 
brought by change of environment, change of mental 
suggestion, as much as by the change of air or water. 

“Spring waters, mountain or sea air, often get a 
great deal of credit which is due to recreation—good, 
wholesome fun. When people go away on vacations 
or little outings they go for the purpose of enjoying 
themselves and, of course, they are benefited.”—Suc¬ 
cess Magazine. 

It is now an established fact that such thoughts as 
hatred, anger, jealousy, worry, fear, despondency, “the 
blues,” cause the secretion of poisonous substances in 
the body which wreck the nerves and upset the health. 
Hurry and worry actually burn up the nervous energy 
without achieving the desired end. Just as each poison 
has an antidote, so each thought poison has its antidote. 

Every discordant thought “wars against the soul,” 
poisons the imagination, weakens the will and brings 
havoc where- order, beauty and peace ought to reign. 
The discordant thoughts can be routed and can be set 


THE CHEMISTRY OF EMOTION 


441 


right by the application of spiritual chemistry—right 
thinking. Just as you can dry up a fountain of tears 
by soft appeals, so we may change the chemistry of 
our mind and blood by mental antidotes for poisonous 
thoughts. 

“What a complete revolution in the whole physical 
and mental being comes after seeing a really funny 
play! You went to the play tired, jaded, worn out, dis¬ 
couraged. All your mental faculties were clogged 
with brain ash; you could not think clearly. When 
you came home you were a new being.” 

Anger, fear and anxiety are among the emotions 
or sentiments which literally poison the blood. It has 
often been said that evil thoughts are poisonous, the 
meaning being that they corrupt other people but the 
real fact is that they poison our own blood. By losing 
control of ourselves and indulging in anger, by yield¬ 
ing to anxiety, fear and unwholesome thoughts, we 
cause an irritation or disturbance which, according to 
the latest dictum of scientists, has the effect of produc¬ 
ing a poison in the blood that may have serious conse¬ 
quences. 

Hatred, indeed, in common with the allied emotions 
of envy, fear and rage—out of which it is compounded 
—reacts singularly both on the mind and on the body. 
One may almost say that its psychological and physio¬ 
logical effects resemble those of alcohol. 

That is, it has at first a stimulating effect. But, if 
the state of hatred be maintained, the effect is depress¬ 
ing rather than stimulating. 


41-2 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


Physiologically, for that matter, the effect of hatred 
is from the outset depressing in certain important re¬ 
spects, notably in its action on the digestive and nutri¬ 
tive processes. 

If the hatred is extreme, amounting to anger, the 
secretion of the gastric juices is stopped. The muscles 
of the stomach and intestines likewise slacken or cease 
their movements entirely. 

On the other hand, there is an increase in the activity 
of some organs, especially the heart and the liver. 
The heart beat goes up, the blood pressure is raised 
and the liver sends into the blood an abnormal amount 
of sugar. 

There is also a change in the distribution of the 
blood, the supply to the stomach being diminished, 
while that to the limbs and to the brain is increased. 
This change in distribution, together with excessive 
secretion of sugar, according to such an eminent author¬ 
ity as Professor Cannon, of Harvard University, is for 
the purpose of increasing the muscular power. 

But, under the conditions of civilized life, hatred is 
not followed by muscular action, as it was in the early 
history of mankind. Even in the countries stricken 
by war, only a comparatively small proportion of the 
inhabitants are called upon to make violent muscular 
effort. 

Consequently there is no adequate outlet for the 
excess energy that the emotion of hatred develops. The 
profound physiological changes it produces are pro¬ 
duced to no purpose. 


THE CHEMISTRY OF EMOTION 


443 


And, psychologically, owing to the continued inter¬ 
ference with the supply of blood to the brain, there is, 
to some degree, a weakening of the intellectual facul¬ 
ties. The man who hates may think quickly, but he is 
always exposed to the danger of thinking foolishly. 

Hatred, in other words, impairs the individual’s 
efficiency, and may do serious injury to the health. 
Certainly no man can remain in perfect health when 
his digestive organs are working badly, when his blood 
is overburdened with sugar and when 'his blood vessels 
are kept at abnormal tension. 

Naturalists declare that the venom of snakes is gen¬ 
erated by sugar and fear; that it is rapidly col¬ 
lected in a special receptacle and thence discharged at 
the object of its anger and fear and, they further ex¬ 
plained, that the same process takes place in the 
human body but since we have no special organ to 
receive it, the acrid secretion, therefore, disperses to 
the blood, and acts against us instead of for our 
protection. Be that as it may, it is generally conceded 
that we are literally poisoned by the emotions men¬ 
tioned and by any passion which upsets the smooth 
workings of our minds. 

Man in some respects isn’t exactly like a snake— 
because, w T hen he is cornered and becomes angry or 
filled with emotion, he doesn’t have any little sack in 
the back of his head or in a hollow tooth to squirt out 
his poison onto his enemy. He has to retain the poison 
in himself. 

There are records of women who have nursed their 
children during a fit of anger, which has so poisoned 


444 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


their milk—the child’s nourishment—that the child 
was thrown into convulsions from the poison, within 
a few hours, and later died. 

The chemistry of emotion reacts upon the physical 
condition of men and is now so well understood that a 
scientist can analyze the spittle of a man and tell just 
what mood he was in when the saliva was secreted. 
They can tell if it is hatred, anger, jealousy, fear, 
worry, envy, etc. Whatever thought you entertain has 
its chemical reaction upon your physical condition. 
All ill and discordant thoughts produce ai poison which 
is pumped into every part of the system, by the circula¬ 
tion of the blood. We literally poison our bodies by 
wrong and discordant -thoughts. 

We may be sufferers from discordant thinking for 
many years before we succumb to some physical ail¬ 
ment but, just as surely as we continue to harbor dis¬ 
cordant and negative emotions, just so sure are we 
liable in time to be seized w T ith some kind of disease. 
While we are young and robust, filled with strength 
and power, we can create by wrong thinking a tre¬ 
mendous amount of poison and can by our physical 
vigor throw off this poison but, if we continue our 
discordant and wrong thinking, the body in time will 
become weakened in one way or another and, when the 
body is physically unfit, and the vitality lowered; that 
is the time when the poison will get in its deadly work. 
The poison will then naturally establish itself in the 
weakest part of the body and, once established, the 
physical ailment may continue for years, never to be 
cured unless the train of thinking is changed. 


THE CHEMISTRY OP EMOTION 


445 


A man may say today that anger doesn't bother him; 
but it does. It is lowering his vitality, it is lessening 
his efficiency, it renders him unable to think as well, 
it keeps him from doing his work up to par. He may 
think he is as strong as Samson, whereas, in reality, 
if a test were made, it would show that his strength 
was far below par. This strong man who thinks that 
anger, or discordant or negative thoughts have no 
effect upon him is liable to come down with a life-long 
sickness, by auto-poisoning, when his physical con¬ 
dition is weakened and his vitality lowered. “The law 
is no respecter of persons." Whatever we think, we 
are. “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." 

In my private practice, as well as in my admonitions 
to all my healing classes, I always caution my patients 
about their mental attitude. Because they are holding 
revenge thoughts, jealous thoughts, envy thoughts, 
hate thoughts or discordant thoughts of other natures, 
they are people who can never be really well. 

A woman who wanted to enter our healing classes 
told me her life's story. She was entertaining three 
thoughts, any one of which would have produced physi¬ 
cal trouble: She hated her brother, she couldn’t for¬ 
give her son and she was jealous of her husband. I 
refused to take her money. This, of course, she didn't 
like. She wanted to enter my healing class and be 
healed the same as hundreds of others. When I refused 
her check, she asked me if her money wasn’t good. 
I told her not to me; I should be taking money under 
false pretenses, for I knew while she entertained any 


446 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


one of those three thoughts my healing class would do 
her no good. 

I then admonished her that if she wanted to change 
her mind and drop her jealousy, forgive her son and 
quit halting her brother, that I should be very glad to 
have her enter my class. She had for so long had so 
much fun w T ith her discordant thoughts that she 
couldn’t, on the spur of the moment, part with those 
thoughts which had brought her so much discordant 
joy. Our interview lasted much longer than usual. 
I tried to persuade the woman to give up her old 
friends for new—her old thoughts for new thoughts 
but persuasion had no effect. Then I gave her the 
choice of the dreaded disease which was leading to her 
death, or a surrender of her hate and jealous thoughts. 
My warning had no effect upon her. She was deter¬ 
mined to think as she wanted to think and to live as 
she wanted to live, to hate as she wanted to hate, to 
be jealous as she wanted to be jealous. 

Then I think I scolded her as severely as I ever 
scolded a patient. When first you don’t succeed, then 
do something else. This method seemed to work bet¬ 
ter, but still she wouldn’t promise to clean up her mind. 
With her check returned she left. The last thing I said 
as she departed was, “If you intend to clean up your 
mind, come back and I will admit you to my healing 
class,” she replied rather abruptly and emphatically, 
yet, tinctured with a yielding spirit, “If I come back 
you will know I have decided to clean my mind.” 

The healing class opened and my difficult patient was 
not present. We continued for some fifteen or twenty 


THE CHEMISTRY OP EMOTION 


447 


minutes when the door opened and she rushed in and 
took a seat. I could tell by the expression of her face 
that she had won her battle. She had changed within 
a few hours. I looked at the woman and said, “You 
will be healed.’ ’ She was; and saved thereby from a 
most serious operation. Her troubles, like those of so 
many other suffering humans, came from auto-poison¬ 
ing. She had created a malign chemical action in her 
blood by her poisonous thoughts. 

Another woman had rheumatism for many years. 
Locating the mental kink which produced this afflic¬ 
tion, we found she had nursed a hate for a relative, for 
many years and rheumatism had begun at the identical 
time of the flare-up, which caused the family ties to 
be severed, which, in turn, produced rheumatism. Of 
course she thought she could never forgive her relative 
but she changed her mind. It was either a case of 
having serious rheumatic pains or forgiving her rela¬ 
tive and, as a rule, when a patient must make a choice 
—pains or forgiveness, pains or cleaning up the mind— 
they usually cleanse the mind. 

When a man has hated so long that he thinks there 
is no more forgiveness in his veins, then, though his 
blood is molten iron, he usually changes his mind when 
it comes to a matter of keeping the old pains or think¬ 
ing right thoughts. 

Think right thoughts and not only health is yours 
but abundance, love, prosperity, fellowship, joy and 
happiness. 


448 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


CHAPTER XXII 


THE CHEMISTRY OF EMOTION—Continued 


'Thought Seed Sowing—How to Prevent a Harvest of 
Thought Weeds 

In some of our thought sowing, we rush, like stam¬ 
peding cattle, headlong to our destruction. 

The law that “ Whatsoever a man soweth that shall 
he also reap” is as unalterable as the famed laws of 
the Medes and Persians. One may lead an exemplary 
life, doing nothing but good to all, yet entertain cer¬ 
tain thoughts and ideas which are as seed that will 
bring forth a harvest of unhappiness. If he is full 
of fear he opens the way through this fear for adverse 
conditions to befall him. Thinking poverty, hard times 
and lack, attracts these very conditions and they mani¬ 
fest as realities in his life, for “As a man thinketh, 
so is he.” Thinking of our fellowmen with kindness, 
seeking to serve them with unselfish devotion, will 
return to us in kind. Thus we have it in our power to> 
sow righteousness and reap heaven. 

As true in the world of thought as in the natural 
world, you cannot get holy, healthy lives from unholy, 
^ear thoughts. 

Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. 
Here is a leaf from an old, old story. Lokman, the Wise, 
was once sent by his master to sow oats in a certain field 
in Arabia. In due time his master saw barley in the ear 




THE CHEMISTRY OF EMOTION 


449 


there and demanded an explanation of his slave’s con¬ 
duct. “I sowed barley,” was the reply, “but I hoped 
and prayed that I should see a (harvest of oats.” “How 
dared you play the fool on a matter of such import¬ 
ance?” cried the indignant master. Lokman answered: 
“Sir, you are constantly sowing in the world the seeds 
of evil and yet you expect to reap the fruits of virtue in 
the resurrection day; wherefore I thought I might have 
a harvest of oats from a sowing of barley.” 

What did Paul say about sowing and reaping? “Be 
not deceived, God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man 
soweth, that shall he also reap.” The kind of harvest 
depends upon the kind of seed sown, in the natural 
and in the spiritual world alike. 

During the Revolutionaay war the American army 
was encamped near West Point, when one day the 
commander was invited to visit a nearby mansion and 
dine with an old gentleman, at precisely two o’clock. 
Having been accustomed to visit the family, the Ameri¬ 
can general had, at first, trusted this old man but 
whispers had got about questioning his fidelity to the 
patriot cause, which at last Washington resolved to put 
to a test. The host had been insistent as to the hour for 
dinner and intimated that a guard would not be neces¬ 
sary. This somewhat aroused Washington’s suspicion, 
so he decided to arrive at least an hour earlier than the 
appointed time. The host suggested a walk on the 
piazza and, by his nervousness, soon made it evident to 
his guest that something was wrong. Washington 
brought the conversation round to the subject of 
traitors and he wondered at the lack of principle that 


450 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


would cause native born Americans to join the enemy 
for a little glittering gold. His fixed look, as he made 
these remarks, caused the traitor to quail; but now the 
sound of horses’ hoofs was heard and up rode a com¬ 
pany of dragoons in scarlet coats. 

“What cavalry are these?” exclaimed Washington. 
“What does this mean?” 

“A party of British light horse sent for my pro¬ 
tection,” answered his host. 

“British horse—to protect you while I am your guest 
—what does this mean, sir?” 

The troops, now dismounting, came toward the 
piazza and the old man, drawing close to his guest, said: 
“General, you are my prisoner!” 

“I believe not,” said Washington, “but, sir, I know 
that you are mine! Arrest this traitor, officer!” 

Not knowing what to make of this turn of affairs, 
the hypocrite looked from Washington to the troopers, 
and then saw that they were American cavalrymen 
whom Washington had disguised in British uniforms, 
and who arrived promptly at a quarter before two, in 
order to protect their general and aid him to test the 
patriotism or treachery of his host. 

Being conducted a prisoner to the camp, the false 
friend afterward confessed that he had been bribed to 
deliver Washington to a squadron of the enemy at two 
o’clock on the day when the American commander was 
his visitor. 

In 1913 a war correspondent wrote, “It would seem 
as though Turkey, after its centuries of persecution and 
brutal massacres, was beginning to receive judgment. 


THE CHEMISTRY OP EMOTION 


451 


Imagine streets of dead and dying whom you en¬ 
counter, not at every ten yards but without a break, 
in groups of four or five, thrown one upon the other. 
Death in common seemed to them, perhaps less awful. 
I have seen these dying ones drag themselves on hands 
and knees toward a wall—toward a shelter, groaning 
from pain and begging for a drop of water. I have 
seen them biting the earth as though digging already 
the grave that was refused by others. I have seen 
them expire in awful convulsions, using their last 
breath to curse those Whose fault or negligence had 
found them such a tomb. 

“It is this one sees at Hademkeui. How many are 
dying? They are uncountable. They are all dying. 
It is the entire Ottoman army that is perishing. 
Cholera is sparing nobody. Ali Riza Pasha, who until 
yesterday was commanding general of artillery, has 
fallen a victim himself.’’ 

Just as the erupting volcano belches forth its lava 
of death, so will evil thoughts reap terror, sorrow and 
death. 

When we sow oats we expect to reap oats. When 
we sow wheat, we expect to reap wheat; and we reap 
more than we sow. We sow one kernel and we get a 
dozen kernels or some grains produce 500 kernels *of 
its kind—some weeds will produce one thousand seeds 
of its kind from one seed. 

This law is as potent in the realm of thinking 
as in the natural realm. Whatever thought we sow 
we reap. We not only reap the one thought but 
we reap many thoughts of the same kind. Mental 


452 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


conduct causes the subconscious mind to generate 
destructive chemicals in the blood and body. Think 
one discordant thought and you create a thousand 
drops of poison blood. Sow one discordant thought 
in the subconscious mind and the body not only reaps 
that one thought but reaps many of its kind; but it 
does not stop after having been reaped in one’s own 
personal, physical and mental life. A thought is not 
only sowed in the individual subconscious soil but it 
goes out into the universal subsoil and there begins to 
germinate, where it will grow itself, plus other seeds 
and fruit of its own kind. 

If we hate somebody, it does not matter whether 
that somebody has wronged us or not, for by hating we 
harm ourselves. If we sow hate, malice and resent¬ 
ment in our bodies, the harvest will be all kinds of 
bodily ailments. 

Not only that but harm is likewise in the universal 
subconscious soil and, when the crop of discordant 
thoughts is harvested, the harvest is of the same kind 
as the seed and many fold more. 

The same is true if we sow love thoughts, thoughts 
of friendship or thoughts of joy, peace, happiness, 
abundance and prosperity—whatever we sow, we reap. 
The Scripture is right—“Be not deceived, God is not 
mocked. Verily, whatsoever a; man soweth, that shall 
he also reap.” This is true with grain—it is true with 
thought. Sow hate and reap hate and all its hateful 
harvest, sow love and reap love with all its manifold 
harvest of blessings. 

The great Master understood what he said, when 


THE CHEMISTRY OP EMOTION 


453 


he told his disciples “to love your enemies,” “love 
those who despitefully use you” and “forgive until 
seventy times seven:” for by reviewing our past ex¬ 
perience, living over again ill thoughts and wrong 
treatment, nursing affronts, imagined or real, we in¬ 
evitably produce a crop of ill health and mental twists. 
Many a person is not well because he is petting some 
mental sore. Mind builds the body, builds the blood; 
the Divine Mind is a chemist within your body. 

Marie Antoinette, riding to Notre Dame for her 
bridal, bade her soldiers command all beggars, crip¬ 
ples and ragged people to leave the line of the pro¬ 
cession. The Queen could not endure for a brief mo¬ 
ment the sight of those miserable ones doomed to un¬ 
ceasing squalor and poverty. What she gave others 
she received herself for, twenty years later, bound in 
an executioner’s cart, she was riding toward her place 
of execution, midst crowds who regarded her with 
hearts as cold as ice and hard as granite. 

When Foulon was asked how the starving populace 
was to live, he answered: “Let them eat grass.” 
Afterward, Carlyle says, “the mob maddened with rage, 
caught him in the streets of Paris, hanged him, stuck 
his head upon a pike, filled his mouth with grass, amid 
shouts as of Tophet from a grass-eating people.” What 
kings and princes give they receive. 

Look at history and see if this law is not true. 
Maxentine built a false bridge, to drown Constantine, 
but was drowned himself. Bajazet was carried about 
by Tamerlane in an iron cage which he intended for 
Tamerlane. Maximinus put out the eyes of thousands 


454 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


of Christians; soon after, a fearful disease of the eyes, of 
which he himself died in great agony broke out among 
his people. Yalens caused about eighty Christians to be 
sent to sea in a ship and burnt alive; defeated by the 
Goths he fled to a cottage, where he was burnt alive. 

Alexander VI was poisoned by wine he had pre¬ 
pared for another. Henry III, king of France, was 
stabbed in the same chamber where as a prince he had 
helped to contrive the cruel massacre of French Pro¬ 
testants. 

“All Romanoffs Slain, Wife and Children Shot 
Down with the Czar by Bolsheviki. ’ ’ So read the news¬ 
paper heading of a horrible drama; innocent children 
butchered in a burst of cold-blooded class hatred. 

It was the first time it ever happened in that Czar’s 
family. But it had happened in Russia in ten thou¬ 
sand Jewish families. And the Czar never lifted his 
finger to save the helpless—grandparents and small 
children—butchered to amuse the drunken, brutal scum 
of the Russian gutter. 

Did that occur to the Czar when the door was broken 
down in his house as doors had been broken in thou¬ 
sands of Jewish homes during his reign? 

“They that live by the sword shall perish by the 
sword.” They forget it while in power. 

What you allow to live in your heart, harbor in 
your mind, dwell upon in your thoughts, are seeds 
which will develop in your life and produce things 
like unto themselves. Hate seed in the heart cannot 
produce a love flower in the life. A sinister thought 
will produce a sinister harvest. 


THE CHEMISTRY OF EMOTION 


455 


No one can do his best work while he harbors re¬ 
vengeful or even unfriendly thoughts toward others. 
Our faculties only give up their best when working in 
perfect harmony. There must be good-will in the 
heart or we cannot do good work with head or hand. 

What is there to be gained by nursing injuries, by 
dwelling upon misfortune, by morbid worrying over 
our failures? Did it ever pay to harbor slights and 
imagined insults? 

There is only one thing to do with a disagreeable 
thought or experience and that is, get rid of it; hurl it 
out of the mind as you would a thief out of your house. 
You cannot afford to give shelter to enemies of your 
peace and comfort. 

If we did not harbor in the mind the things that 
are not good for us, they would not make such a last¬ 
ing impression upon us. In fact, they would not get 
hold of us. It is the harboring of them, turning them 
over and over, thinking of them, that intrenches them 
in the mind. 

A kindly attitude, a feeling of good-will toward 
others, is our best protection against bitter hatred or 
injurious thoughts of any kind, for such thoughts 
cannot penetrate the love shield, the good-will shield. 

We need no thrilling blasts blown through silver 
trumpets to have our thoughts carried around the 
world. 

We may as well try to puncture the clouds with a 
javelin, fight a swarm of bumble bees with a pop gun, 
expect a rose to sprout from a crab apple tree, as to 
think we shall escape reaping what we sow. 


456 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


Violate the law of electricity and the mysterious 
power will strike; the law of fire and you will he 
burned; the law of wind and tide and you will go upon 
the rocks; the law of gravitation and you will be 
hurled into the abyss. Thus the book of Nature, like 
the word of truth, declares that every transgression 
and every disobedience must receive a just recom¬ 
pense. 

The captain of the steamer “Slocum” was sen¬ 
tenced to ten years imprisonment. He had disobeyed 
the law which required fire drills of the crew of the 
ship and, when the “ Slocum ” caught on fire, this neg¬ 
lect was the cause of a terrible loss of life. At the 
time of the fire the captain displayed courage and 
faithfulness to duty, but then it was too late. 

We reap from our sowing of wrong thoughts a 
harvest of grey ashes. 

Mind builds the body. Mind builds the blood. Mind 
is a chemist within your body. Oftentimes there is a 
chemical unbalance in your body, because of some 
corrosive, irritating, worrying thought in your mind, 
which interferes with the subconscious mind and keeps 
it from doing normal and natural work in your body. 
Acids, astringents and wrong chemicals are created in 
the body, in the blood and, when there is a wrong 
chemical condition in your body, you have rheuma¬ 
tism, kidney disease and all other troubles. Mind, by 
wrong thinking, has generated chemicals which are 
destructive to the organs and tissues. 

When we sow our fields we see nothing further of 
the seed but, after some days, it sprouts and begins to 


THE CHEMISTRY OF EMOTION 


457 


be noticed; so it is with our thoughts. For the mo¬ 
ment their seed is hidden but after a time it is har¬ 
vested and comes to light. 

In 1857, there hung in the Art Building at the 
World’s Fair in Paris, an oil painting only about a 
foot square. Under it was the caption “Sowing the 
Tares.” It was a picture 'of a man with the most 
hideous countenance. He looked more like a demon 
than a man. As he sowed tares, up came reptiles. They 
were slimy, crawling over his body, around his legs. 
In the background were toads, wolves and other ani¬ 
mals, prowling. 

Sowing the tares—it is as true in mental sowing as 
with physical seed sowing. Sow tares of thought and 
we reap tares of thought. Sow seeds of love, joy, hap¬ 
piness and we reap love, joy and happiness. There 
is an old proverb which says “Sin and penalty go 
through the world with their hands tied together.” It 
would be just as well to say that discordant thoughts 
and sickness go tied together. Discordant thoughts 
and failure go tied together, discordant thoughts and 
limitation go tied together and it would be equally 
true to say “right thinking and health go tied to¬ 
gether, right thinking and success go tied together, 
right thinking and happiness go tied together.” This 
is a natural law. Natural laws are put here for man’s 
benefit but they must be obeyed or we suffer the con¬ 
sequence. 

This law is no respecter of persons, for “Verily, 
whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” 
This is as true with biblical characters as with others. 


458 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


The Bible differs from many other books on religion 
in that it presents the flaws of its great characters as 
well as their virtues, and even though the Jews were 
“chosen people of God” yet when they disobeyed one 
of these natural laws they had to pay the penalty. 

It is as true with one as it is with another. Notice 
Jacob, for instance, “as a prince he walked with God.” 
But Jacob sowed the seed of lies and he reaped a 
harvest of lies. Together with his cunning mother he 
fooled his old blind father Isaac, and got his older 
brother Esau’s birthright. He had to lie to cheat his 1 
brother out of what was his own—corn begets corn, 
oats beget oats, wheat begets wheat and lies beget 
lies. 

After he had done this dastardly thing he had to 
flee from his brother to save his life. He went to the 
camp of his uncle Laban. He lied to his father. Now 
somebody is going to lie to him. His uncle Laban has 
a beautiful daughter, Rachael. He falls desperately in 
love with Rachael and makes a compact with his uncle 
Laban that he will work for seven years if his uncle 
will give him Rachael as his bride. Uncle says “yes.” 
Uncle says “go ahead, put in seven years of service 
and Rachael shall be yours.” With this in view he 
worked his seven years and led to the marriage altar, 
as was the custom' in those days, Laban’s daughter 
veiled and, when the ceremony had been performed 
and the veil removed, “Lo and behold,” he had mar¬ 
ried the wrong woman. Laban had tricked him. It was 
not customary or good form for an easterner in those 
days to marry a younger daughter off until the older 


THE CHEMISTRY OF EMOTION 


459 


daughters were bound in the holy bonds of matri¬ 
mony. Jacob had lied to his father and he was reap¬ 
ing the harvest of his thought thistles so he had to 
serve seven years longer to get the woman of his heart. 
Jacob had become an honorary member in the world’s 
Ananias club, because he sowed a weed seed and “what¬ 
soever we sow we reap.” 

If you were to see a man sowing thistles in his gar¬ 
den, you might say to him, “Do you realize what you 
are doing? Don’t you know that thistles will choke 
out the good crop in your garden?” Suppose a man 
who is sowing a crop of thistles, says “I am raising 
garden truck—I am, just doing this for pastime, re¬ 
creation and exercise—you would probably tell that 
man he was rather foolish, that he could not sow 
thistles and reap beets, carrots and cabbages. Yet 
many people are just as foolish as that. They pass on 
slander, repeat foul terms, think poverty, concentrate 
on inharmony and expect to reap a harvest of health, 
happiness and prosperity. Whatever thoughts we sow 
come back, laden with our accumulated interest—an 
abundance of kind—whether the thoughts be ill or 
good, whether they be harmonious or discordant. “Out 
of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.” 
Sooner or later, unless you “right about face,” your 
deeds will conform with your words. You will reap 
what you have sown. 

If we expect to reap untainted fruit, we must sow 
pure thoughts. If we expect discordant thoughts to 
produce harmony, happiness and peace, we will have 
to change our thinking, for “whatsoever a man soweth, 


460 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


that shall he also reap.” The very things he sows he 
will reap and, just as thistle seed produces its kind in 
great numbers and these seeds in turn continue to 
produce for one generation after another, so a man 
may sow a discordant thistle thought to such a degree 
that it may bear fruit for generations to come. 


This sounds harsh but it is the law. There is, never¬ 
theless, a constructive side to this message and that is 
that we get an opportunity to uproot some of the dan¬ 
gerous thistle seeds which we have sown and prevent 
a great harvest, just as weeds may be uprooted in the 
garden and the garden saved. 

Our thoughts of today are weaving the loom of our 
destiny of tomorrow. There are thousands of giood, 
honest, conscientious Christian people who have 
neither accumulated much of this world’s goods nor 
otherwise prospered. They wonder why it is—they 
have served God well; they have not broken the ten 
commandments. They have gone to church regularly 
and been at their seats at prayer meetings, and yet 
are poverty stricken. Why? Because they have sown 
wrong seed thoughts. The law is no respecter of per¬ 
sons. If a good Christian person thinks poverty 
thoughts, he is going to reap poverty. God doesn’t 
change his immutable law for some good deacon in the 
church who does not conform to the law of abundance, 
so it does not matter what may be our religious con¬ 
victions, we reap what we sow. If we sow poverty 
thoughts, we get a harvest of poverty, no matter where 
we may worship God. If we sow abundant thoughts, 
our harvest will be abundance. 





THE CHEMISTRY OP EMOTION 


461 


“Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap.” 
“Be not deceived, God is not mocked.” Neither is God 
a respecter of persons. 

A certain young man started life most brilliantly, 
hopefully and successfully. He had, at the age of 
twenty-one, been given a farm, well stocked and with 
plenty of implements to begin life’s successful career. 
To the house on this farm he led his hopeful bride. 
This farm had been given to him from a heart of 
abundance. The farm had cost the boy nothing. He 
was well fixed, young, strong, well, with a buxom 
young bride at his side. His old father had no place 
to go. The young married man brought his father 
into his home. The wife objected, which might be all 
right in some cases, but the point is that the old man 
was not cared for. A little cottage might have been 
erected upon this man’s farm at very little expense, 
where the old father could comfortably have spent his 
last days. Instead, however, of going to any expense 
or care to protect the gray hairs of the father from 
shame, that father was driven out of this home, be¬ 
came a charity subject and lived in the poorhouse. 

Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. 

Many years passed. The couple prospered year after 
year. The farmer became one of the well-to-do mem¬ 
bers of his community. Everything he touched seemed 
to multiply in money. His father languished in the 
poorhouse and died—an old man without a place to 
lay his head or call his own. “Whatsoever a man 
soweth that shall he also reap.” Although we do not 
see it at the time. 


462 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


Many years of prosperity passed. The young man 
reached middle life and started journeying on the 
other side of life’s meridian. For over thirty years he 
had lived a prosperous life, filled with happiness, with 
his wife at his side. This man was a lover of horses. 
He always had the best horses money could buy. He 
prided himself that he could aways manage any horse 
man could harness. He delighted in the sport of 
breaking in colts and controlling spirited animals. He 
always had the finest, liveliest horses, there were to be 
purchased. He had, however, a brutal mind toward 
horses. In anger he would beat them most unmerci¬ 
fully. He would kick them in the belly, pound them 
with rods and beat them with whiffletrees. One day 
the hired man was engaged doing some other work 
about the farm so that he could not, as was his daily 
custom, go to the station with milk, to be shipped to 
market. The prosperous farmer in haste hitched up a 
team of colts. One of these was his proudest horse¬ 
flesh prize—Bill. 

Our farmer tvas a good horseman but the best horse¬ 
man in the world has to have something in the shape 
of a harness, bridle or rein to control his horses. In 
his hurry, the farmer had failed to buckle the bridle 
securely on Bill. He jumped into the wagon and the 
team was off. Things went well for a time but it wasn’t 
long before Bill became unruly and, when the farmer 
tried to bring Bill to an understanding, the uhbuckled 
bridle slipped over Bill’s head and Bill dashed on out 
of control of the masterful driver. 

The speed, the fright and the flopping bridle en- 


THE CHEMISTRY OF EMOTION 


463 


raged the colt until he bucked and kicked as 'he ran 
wild—dashing the buckboard against a tree, throw¬ 
ing out the horseman and leaving him senseless. Neigh¬ 
bors found this prosperous farmer at the side of the 
road in a stupor. They were able to get him home and 
fix him up. The doctors saw there was a chance for 
life and, within a few weeks, had him convalescing. 
“But whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also 
reap.” God is no respecter of persons; neither is the 
law. Sow the seed of horse-beating and you gather the 
harvest of a horse-beater. 

Before the runaway accident, this prosperous farmer 
had begun to lose some of his fortune. He was far in 
advance of the ordinary agriculturist and he was, 
hence, open to the purchase of any kind of a farm 
implement that would save time and labor in harvest¬ 
ing crops. When the binder was first on the market 
he saw the great value of having his crops handled 
by machinery instead of their being cut by scythe and 
bound by hand. He not only purchased a reaper him¬ 
self but took the agency for the county. 

Now, when a big harvesting corporation gets a man 
to take an agency for a county, it is generally ar¬ 
ranged so that the agent gets plenty of machines, so 
he was loaded up with reapers. He was good for it, 
the harvester company knew and it also knew he 
would pay them for the great number he had 
bought. In paying them he had to mortgage his farm 
and mortgage it heavily. Other farmers were not so 
advanced as he and he found that his agency was a 
dead loss. He could not induce any of his neighbors 


464 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


or other farmers to use this splendid machine to save 
human sweat and human muscle. In the meantime, 
some other investments the farmer had made went 
wrong—one calamity followed upon the heels of a pre¬ 
ceding calamity until, when the accident took place, his 
farm was mortgaged for just about all that money 
lenders would stand. 

“Be not deceived, God is not mocked. Whatsoever 
a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” This horse- 
beater soon died the death of a horse-beater. The wife 
was left with the farm, stock and implements—espe¬ 
cially binders. But things do not always go as well 
on the farm with the widow as with the trained farmer, 
so crops were not so good, harvest not so plentiful 
but credit fairly abundant enough for somebody to 
plan on getting the widow deep enough in debt to get 
her farm. 

It was not long before the farm was plastered with 
mortgages and the widow had so little equity in it 
that she was nothing but a lone, penniless woman. To 
add to this: a fire caught in this woman’s home, (that 
had been given to her forty years before, from which 
she had driven her father-in-law to the poor house). 
There was no insurance on the house. It was situated 
a long way from town—no hook and ladder were handy 
—no fire company hose to play upon the flames, so it 
was not long before the house was burned completely 
to the. ground and the widow farmless and homeless. 

“Whatsoever ye sow, ye shall reap.” For over 
twenty years that one-time buxom hopeful bride, who 
had turned an old man out upon the public charity, 


THE CHEMISTRY OF EMOTION 


465 


was in the same condition; only she was able to per¬ 
form a servant’s duty for a shelter from the rain and 
for a bed to sleep in. 

When she was ninety years of age she was still a 
servant working for her bread and butter. 

Our better selves are strangled to death by the con¬ 
ditions of ill thought sowing. 

Many a man makes his Via Dolorosa by the thoughts 
he entertains. Arise, follow your conductor of right 
thinking. Fear no danger, for your harvest will be 
bountiful if the thoughts you sow are good. 

We reap in kind and we reap more than we sow 
but, if we have been spending our time in riotous sow¬ 
ing, there is yet one way to prevent the harvest from 
becoming a harvest of misery. Every discordant and 
negative, inharmonious thought comes back, to the per¬ 
son who thinks it, in a bountiful harvest, but there is 
yet one way that we can prevent this harvest from 
being abundant. That way is this: 

This very minute, close the book and send out into the 
universal ether a constructive thought to follow that 
which you have been thinking destructively. If you have 
harmed anyone, either by action, deed or thought, this 
very moment send out the counter-thought, its antidote 
and send abundant blessing and success thoughts for 
the ones whom you have injured. If we have physically 
or any other way been harmful to some one else, we 
can prevent the natural harvest and our shoulders 
from stooping under the weight of a foul harvest, by 
this very moment concentrating for the good of the 
person whom we have sought to injure. 


L66 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


T3ie science of this is that one constructive thought 
is worth ten thousand destructive thoughts and, if we 
have thought ill, planned ill, or worked ill toward any¬ 
one else, these thoughts have been destructive. One 
constructive thought will shatter to pieces these de¬ 
structive ones, if we think with an open mind, free 
from prejudice, willing to forgive, anxious to redeem 
the past and hopeful for the other person’s health, life 
and success. 

You see then the law is just as applicable in bring¬ 
ing about the good harvest, as the bad, but it is more 
forceful for the good, because it is constructive. Just 
as a rake and a hoe can dig up weeds in the garden, 
so can constructive thought uproot destructive 
thoughts which have been sown in the universal sub¬ 
soil. Let constructive thoughts now emanate from 
your mental sending station, with all the power and 
faith of a strong soul who means to retrieve the past, 
and your harvest of weeds will be lessened. 

Indeed, like produces like, but the constructive 
thought produces constructive thoughts to a greater 
degree than destructive thinking produces destruc¬ 
tion. Strong, positive, constructive thoughts, retriev¬ 
ing the past, overlooking our wrongs and other peo¬ 
ple’s faults, set about to wish good-will to all, and act 
as the gardener’s rake to dig up the weeds. The bet¬ 
ter you can concentrate, free from envy, jealousy, 
fear, worry, enmity and hate, the better will be your 
mind’s rake, the better will the weeds of thought be 
dug up and a good harvest grow. You yet have with¬ 
in you, the power, by right thinking, to prevent your 


THE CHEMISTRY OP EMOTION 


467 


thistle harvest from multiplying a thousandfold. You 
may reduce the harvest to one thistle. You have the 
power to overcome the past, to plan for the future and 
to achieve success, happiness and peace. 

This affirmation is worth remembering: 

Would you be at peace? Speak peace to the world. 

Would you be healed? Speak health to the world. 

Would you be loved? Speak love to the world. 

Would you be successful? Speak success to the 
world. 

For all the world is so closely akin that not one 
individual may realize his desire except all the world 
share it with him. 

And every good word you send into the world is 
a silent, mighty power, working for Peace, Health, 
Love, Joy, Success to all the world—including your 

self. 


468 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


CHAPTER XXIII 


LIFE’S GREATEST BET 


What the World Owes You and How to Get It— 
Life’s Greatest Bet—Scientific Thinking 

In considering the power of the spoken word, it is 
to be noted that there are two results to come from 
the thoughts we think and words we speak—the de¬ 
structive and the constructive. 

I am going to develop just two illustrations of the 
destructive or the negative side of the power of the 
spoken word and the rest of our time will be devoted 
to the constructive side, that of encouragement, help, 
happiness and success. 

In a city in the Middle West lived a woman who 
had a tongue, sharp as a two-edged sword. Another 
woman, who was not in the same social stratum as the 
first had to make her own living, unaided—had to 
raise her own family. The second had one daughter 
who was a little indiscreet; nothing bad, nothing im¬ 
moral, but indiscreet in her conversation and associa¬ 
tion with young men. This gave the two-edge tongued 
woman a chance to gossip. She spread the news 
abroad that the young girl was indelicate, indecent 
and immoral and, just as sparks of fire can be fanned 
into a flame, so the sparks of idle words were fanned 
and wafted on the breeze of gossip until not only the 




LIFE’S GREATEST BET 


469 


future of the girl was jeopardized but the heart of the 
mother was broken. 

There is a psychological law to this purpose: that 
whatever thoughts we think or words we speak go out 
into the ethereal atmosphere—universal mind—with 
the power to produce in kind the fruit of the thoughts 
or the words that are sown. 

The woman who so gossiped was, by the natural 
consequences of the psychological law of the spoken 
words, destined to reap the weeds of gossip in the 
years that were ahead. 

Her spoken word had gone forth—the spoken word 
of evil, the spoken word of character-besmirching, the 
spoken word of heartbreaking, the spoken word of im¬ 
morality and, as the spoken word has power to produce, 
in kind, so was she destined in time to reap the same 
kind of harvest of the spoken word that she had spread 
broadcast by the power of her tongue. 

Many years passed. The poorer woman, with her 
family, rose above the idle tales which had for a time 
been woven about their lives and characters—rose 
above the gossip, rose above insinuations, rose above 
reflections and became prosperous and respected; but 
the woman who had used the power of the spoken word 
for belittling and besmirching had reaped what she 
had sown. Her own daughter was living a life of 
immorality and she was at the same time living in a 
houseboat on the Mississippi river in illicit associ- 
tion with a man who was not her husband. 

The power of the spoken word to blast and kill is 
beyond calculation. 


470 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


Just one other illustration to emphasize the power 
of the spoken word to destroy and kill, then we shall 
pass to the elevating, the constructive power of the 
spoken word to save and build. 

Some years ago in an institution in the city of 
Chicago, conducted for the restoration of human dere¬ 
licts, a fire broke out. There was just one man in that 
habit-reforming institution who was burned to death; 
all the others, officials, attendants and inmates escaped 
with their lives. 

This man was a prominent politician. His name at 
one time was on the tongue of every one interested in 
the civic life of the Windy City. When the fire was 
over, so badly had he been burned and “roasted’’ that 
the only means of identification was the finger on 
which was his ring. 

This man had married a. Catholic. We ought to 
have respect in life for each other’s convictions and 
mode of worship, especially if a Protestant has mar¬ 
ried a Catholic—ought to have respect and considera¬ 
tion for each other’s training and custom. 

But the man seemed to have forgotten that his wife 
should be allowed the right of following the dictates 
of her own conscience in the worship of God and 
spurned his wife’s plea for what to her was the most 
sacred rite in her religious life. 

For if there is anything holy to one born and reared 
a Catholic, it is the privilege of having a priest ad¬ 
minister to her, before dying, the last holy sacrament. 

This man’s wife lay upon her dying bed. Sickness 
had emaciated her body, suffering had wrinkled her 


LIFE’S GREATEST BET 


471 


face, pain had racked her constitution, she had but a 
few hours to live. Upon being told this she asked her 
husband to ca'll a priest that the last rites of the church 
might be administered to her ere she closed her eyes 
forever. 

The husband was not in sympathy with such relig¬ 
ious ceremonies, told his wife so and said that he 
would give neither time nor money to the idea. Dur¬ 
ing the wife’s effort to persuade her husband of the 
importance of this ceremony for her peace of mind and 
rest of soul, the husband became enraged and said 
that he would not give five cents to save her soul from 
hell and that he did not care if she burned forever. 
Whereupon the dying woman, with superhuman effort 
raised herself upon one elbow and shaking her skeleton, 
deathlike finger at the man she had married for bet¬ 
ter or for worse, screeched her revenge “then you will 
roast alive.” The power of the spoken word was vin¬ 
dicated—he literally “roasted alive” in the sanitarium 
fire! 

THINK BEFORE YOU SPEAK 

Suppose a neighbor has gone wrong? 

Think before you speak! 

Each life may have some saddened song, 

Think before you speak! 

You may have a grief some day 

That will lead your feet astray; 

Then you’ll bless the tongues that say 
“Think before you speak!” 


472 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


A neighbor's boy has “got in bad"— 

Think before you speak! 

Recall bis loved ones, shamed and sad, 

Think before you speak! 

Some day your own son may fall; 

Scorn may push him to the wall; 

Then your heart will fill with gall— 

Think before you speak! 

If some poor girl has slipped in woe, 

Think before you speak! 

Say no harsh word to weight the blow, 

Think before you speak! 

Scarlet letters yet may be 

Hung upon your family tree; 

Let us all have charity— 

Think before you speak! 

The power of the spoken word to save and build is 
manifested in every walk of life. In the Middle West 
are thousands of acres of land selling for $250 to $500 
an acre. Seventy-five years ago the land was not 
worth on the market five cents a square mile. In 
1849, when the gold seekers were making their rush 
across the continent they passed this land which is now 
so valuable. It was worth just as much then as now, 
from the productivity standpoint, but it needed to be 
discovered. Its qualifications for agricultural and com¬ 
mercial purposes needed to be exploited and its value 
put upon the market. The gold seekers in the days 
that are gone did not know that gold in crops, in 


LIFE’S GREATEST BET 


473 


stocks, in market produce, was literally covering the 
sod. 

There are oil wells in Oklahoma and Texas today 
gushing out 1,800 barrels of oil every twenty-four 
hours—bringing in a net income to the owner of $3,600 
a day, and yet, the same land, years ago, could scarcely 
be given away. 

Oil wealth had been hidden under the surface of the 
earth for millions of years but it needed some one to 
discover the value, to tap the wells and bring forth the 
commercial price. Gold and oil riches untold—it was 
only needed for someone to make the discovery and 
market the goods. 

When Jesus walked along the shores of Galilee and 
called James and John, Andrew and Peter; when 
Phillip brought Nathaniel, it was the power of the 
spoken word that attracted these men to the great 
human dynamo of sympathy, love and courage. 

The Disciples of the Great Nazarene were men of 
middle life, not special successes in the world, as 
man terms success, but they had within them the gold 
and the oil of human value. It took Christ to bring 
out what was precious in these men. 

He found the gold, He tapped the reservoirs of oil 
—He made world celebrities out of the unknown fisher¬ 
men of Galilee. 

All men have gold in them. All men have oil wells 
gurgling beneath the surface—hidden from view. All 
they need is to have the right word spoken, or the 
right encouragement given to bring forth to the sur- 


474 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


face and give to the world their great talents and 
abilities. 

In the realm of applied science Sir Isaac Newton 
stands supreme!—a monarch of all—one of the five or 
six greatest intellects of all time and yet, the gold of 
intellectualism and the oil of service to human kind 
might have remained in the subconscious mind of 
young Newton, undiscovered; he might have gone down 
to his grave unknown, unhonored and unsung but for 
the fact that a rich uncle tapped the reservoir of gold 
and oil. 

Newton’s mother, like so many misguided and well- 
meaning parents, had determined that young Newton 
was to become a farmer. Now there is no more dignified, 
no more independent, no more happy life than that of 
the agriculturist, providing Nature calls the individual 
to follow the life of the soil. Nature had not called 
young Newton to be a farmer, and his mother was trying 
to defeat Nature. 

So a wise uncle, with plenty of means at his com¬ 
mand, saw young Newton unhappy in his surround¬ 
ings and work and asked his mother if she would not 
give her consent to let him take Isaac from his un¬ 
happy environment and place him where he belonged. 
In short, the uncle discovered young Newton, sent him 
to school and saved a genius to the world. 

When we consider the great service that Newton 
has rendered to the world at large, our minds go back 
to the uncle and we put upon his brow the laurel 
wreath of wisdom and genius for he shares with New- 


LIFE’S GREATEST BET 


475 


ton the honors that the world has placed upon the 
brow of the world’s greatest scientist. 

For, without the uncle’s discovery and without the 
uncle’s money and without the uncle’s encouragement, 
without the uncle’s bet placed upon young Newton, 
the world would have been a tremendous loser. 

Everyone has something in him or her, which, if 
discovered and encouraged and developed, may bring 
blessings to themselves and to the world. 

The thoughts we think and the words we speak 
have the power to save and the power to build—to save 
men and build lives. 

A word, a smile, perhaps a financial lift at the right 
time, may rescue a discouraged soul and give to the 
w T orld 'a genius. 

I suppose there is no more popular song writer of 
today than George Cohan. Hisi songs have been sung 
by millions. Cohan has an odd way of spending 1 his 
money. It may not be the way that we should spend 
it but then it is so easy for us to tell the other fellow 
how he ought to spend his money after he has made it. 

Twenty-five years ago we were all telling Andrew 
Carnegie how he should give his money away. We, 
who didn’t believe in libraries, could easily tell him a 
better way to get rid of his millions and, I suppose, 
many of us could tell Cohan the way to spend his 
money to better advantage (as we see it) but that 
wouldn’t make much difference to George for he’ll go 
on spending his money just where he will get the most 
satisfaction and enjoyment. 


476 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


He likes to spend his money to help people who are 
totally discouraged and deserted. No one can be in 
the slough of despondency, in the quagmire of failure 
or the swill trough of sin too deep for Cohan to try 
to help. He calls this “betting his money on the down- 
and-outers.” Of course, his bet doesn’t win on every¬ 
one—everyone doesn’t “come back”—but enough of 
the down-and-outers whom he helps do “come back” 
to make betting money on life’s derelicts a most fas¬ 
cinating game for Cohan. 

Man will bet his money on a ball game or horse race, 
a hand of cards or the weather; he’ll gamble on any 
fool thing, from which way a chicken will run across 
the road to how many beans in a pot; but many a man 
won’t take a chance on helping a human being to get 
back onto his feet. 

A man who is discouraged can never do good work. 
There is nothing more provocative of inefficiency than 
to discourage a human being. Cn the other hand many 
a man could put a bet upon a colleague which would 
bear more than a hundred percent interest. 

We often hear men boast that they are “self-made” 
but there is no such thing as a “self-made” mian. This 
world is all co-operation. “No man liveth unto him¬ 
self'alone” and the man, who claims to be “self-made” 
has had more than one person who has figured in his 
life to help him become “self-made.” If each person 
were honest with himself and would take a few mo¬ 
ments’ thought, he could recall the sign-posts in his 
life which have directed him to his present place of 
success—human sign-posts that have said the right 


LIFE’S GREATEST BET 


477 


word or in some other way given him a lift on the 
crossroads of life. 

The so-called ‘ ‘ self-made ’ ’ man deserves a great deal 
of credit, that much we will not deny. There is, never¬ 
theless, only one way to be really “self-made” and that 
is to live on an island all by yourself, like Robinson 
Crusoe and even then you probably would have your 
good man Friday. 

Therefore, when we consider our great success as 
being all of our own creation, we are not playing fair 
with ourselves or others, for someone has figured in 
our lives to help us when we needed help. It may have 
been a mother or a wife, it might have been a father 
or a friend. Aye, it could even have been an enemy 
who laid a trap to trip you which but fired your fight¬ 
ing spirit to greater zeal and made it possible for you 
to be a greater man than you thought you could be. 

When we consider that our success has been de¬ 
pendent upon the help of others, be they friend or foe, 
let us take account of our own stock. We shall not 
only see that we are where we are because others have 
helped us, but we shall, in turn, want to give of our time 
and attention, energy and money to help others; for 
there has been more than one man who has bet on us 
and we, to win our bet, must, in turn, bet on others. 

Place your life’s bet on a human being and win 
your bet. 

Of all the sacred musical geniuses, Handel is the 
greatest composer. His oratorios are absolutely un¬ 
equaled, and yet, had it not been for the bet an Aus¬ 
trian duke placed upon Handel, his genius would 


478 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


have been lost to the world and his oratorios not 
known. 

In the days of Handel, the patrons of mnsic were of 
the rich and nobility. Handel had been fighting a los¬ 
ing game. He had not been able to get recognition 
nor could he make a decent living by 'his talent. This 
was brought to the attention of the Austrian duke 
who saw in Handel’s music and also in Handel him¬ 
self, something that the human race needed so he se¬ 
cured an orchestra and let Handel conduct it; gave 
him a chance, inspired the dying spirit of Handel 
which, in time, has made all mankind his debtor. But 
mankind is indebted not only t-o Handel but also to the 
duke who bet at the right time upon the great musician. 

Haydn also came to a point when he thought life 
was not worth living. He was not appreciated; he 
could not make a living; he had reached the place 
where it was no use to try to go farther. At this criti¬ 
cal time, when the world might have lost Haydn and 
all of his wonderful compositions, there came a trio 
of nobility into the life of Haydn who saved him and 
his music. These nobles, Baron F'ernberg, Count Mor- 
zin and Prince Ezterhazy, have linked their names 
eternally with that of Haydn, because they had the 
money and patronage to couple with Haydn’s genius, 
and had the vision and wisdom to do the coupling. 

Verdi, the composer of II Trovatore, became the 
richest composer in the world, and yet, at one time, he 
was the most discouraged of musicians. He, likewise, 
had given up all hope and was ready to sink, when a 
rich merchant placed his bet upon the unknown. He 


LIFE’S GREATEST BET 


479 


made it possible for Verdi to continue to get his com¬ 
positions before the world and, by his money and en¬ 
couragement, Verdi, in time, became rich and famous. 

Frank Gunsaulus had been inspired by Russell H. 
Conwell to build in Chicago an institution that would 
help poor boys and girls who had not money to get 
the technical education given in other educational in¬ 
stitutions. One Sunday morning he outlined what 
could be done in this respect in Chicago if he had a 
million dollars. When the sermon was over, Philip D. 
Armour, the great packer, presented his check for one 
million dollars to Doctor Gunsaulus and told him to 
go ahead. 

The papers flashed the news of the “million dollar 
sermon” across the continent and around the world. 
Frank Gunsaulus’ dream was realized. The Chicago 
School of Technology was the result and it has fur¬ 
nished an education and a start in life to thousands of 
boys and girls to whom otherwise it would have been 
denied. 

Who do you think was the greater man of the two? 
Was it Frank Gunsaulus, who could dream the dream 
and put it over; or was it the rich man who made the 
dream a reality? One was as necessary as the other. 
Verily we do not live to ourselves alone. Frank Gun¬ 
saulus saw the vision. Frank Gunsaulus dreamed the 
dream. Philip D. Armour bet upon the dream. 

The two men together were doing a most outstand¬ 
ing work for those who needed that kind of an edu¬ 
cation. These two men, the intellectual preacher and 
the rich business man, combined to place their bet upon 


480 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


human lives. They have helped thousands in this gen¬ 
eration and still other thousands in the next, and so 
on to the end of time. The influence will never stop 
but, like a snowball catching momentum, will become 
greater and greater as the years pass. They both bet 
on humanity—the kind of a bet which draws the big¬ 
gest interest. 

One man was as necessary as the other. In my mind 
one was just as great a soul as the other, for other 
business men heard that sermon, other millionaires 
could have given their millions but missed the point. 
Armour grabbed it. To support a dreamer it takes as 
big a soul in a business man as it does in the dreamer to 
build his visions. 

But you say that you are not rich; that you are not 
influential; that you have no particular standing in the 
community and you cannot start a movement which 
will continue to reap trained men in the harvestfold of 
a better humanity to the end of time! 

But wait! It was a poor Sepoy sailor who won 
India to the English crown. 

It was an obscure farmer whose message at the right 
time made it possible for Washington to know when to 
move, when to cross the Delaware, surprise the Hes¬ 
sians at Trenton and strike a blow for man’s eternal 
independence. You may not have the same opinion as 
I, but I believe in the great assize of man’s endeavors, 
that the farmer, who could help Washington to save 
humanity from the serfdom of kings, had a soul just 
as great as the Father of his Country, himself. 

One hundred twenty-five years ago the name 


LIFE’S GREATEST BET 


481 


of Napoleon struck terror into the hearts of the people 
of Europe. As a poor soldier lad, who had been seven 
years without promotion, whose ability had not been 
recognized and who was living with his brother in a 
garret, on soup and dry bread, he rose to be the might¬ 
iest general of his day and one of the greatest military 
strategists of all time. 

There is no doubt but that, at the beginning, Na¬ 
poleon really intended to help humanity. He per¬ 
haps helped advance the cause of human independence 
by a hundred years but, when power was his, he be¬ 
came drunken with his own greatness and then it was 
that his ambition to help was swallowed up by ambition 
for lust >and personal aggrandizement. Then it was, 
he began to dream of all Europe under his power, sub¬ 
ject to his dictation. As he conquered one country 
after another he put his own brothers upon the thrones 
of the conquered nations. There was no nation or com¬ 
bination of nations that could stop the onrush of his 
mighty genius. As Emerson says, he came to France 
when France had money and left it in debt and pov¬ 
erty. He had torn the heart of the peoples of Europe 
until not a single family, hardly, of all the continent of 
Europe, but had suffered because of this tyrant. He 
had reached the climax of his tyranny. He had come 
to the point where it was either the subjection of 
Napoleon or the selfdom of Europe. In this extremity, 
Wellington marshalled his forces at Waterloo and the 
great English general brought to his knees Napoleon, 
the greatest despot of modem times, save one. And 
who was Wellington? Why! Wellington, was a man 


482 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


who was saved and bet upon by a common, ordinary 
street sweeper of London. 

Wellington was the military genius but, back of 
him, was the street sweeper. You may not agree with 
me, but it is my opinion that there beat a heart, in the 
breaisit of that street sweeper, just as noble and just as 
capable of the highest development as that of Welling¬ 
ton himself. 

The great war produced many outstanding military 
and diplomatic men. Three of these great men, beyond 
a doubt, were Cardinal Mercier, Woodrow Wilson and 
—this third member of the great triumvirate has held 
the limelight and kept the boat from rocking longer 
than any other one particular diplomat and, who is 
he? 

He is the product of the benevolence and penetra¬ 
tion of a shoe cobbler, old, obscure and poor, who bet 
upon a little lad to the extent of going hungry him¬ 
self that the boy might be educated. 

The cobbler realized that he was old, had not done 
very much in his life and so he shared what little he 
had with the lad who needed help, care and assistance. 
When the time came for the boy to go to college, it 
never could have been accomplished had it not been 
for the cobbler. The cobbler told the young man to 
start to college, to take what little savings he had 
accumulated, which were but a pittance and, that when 
that was gone, he would try to have more to send to 
the young man. 

The old cobbler said: ‘ ‘ It is not necessary that I eat 
three meals a day; you go, I’ll economize on meals 


LIFE’S GREATEST BET 


483 


and the little I can thus save I shall send to you.” The 
boy went to school and the cobbler went hungry. The 
boy finished his education. The cobbler has had reason 
to rejoice. The young man soon became active in the 
support of the claims of working men. In stirring up 
enthusiasm and sentiment for the common people, he 
was often threatened with mob violence. Indeed, at 
different times, in order to prevent a tragedy, he had to 
be escorted out by the back door of the buildings in 
which he spoke. By and by came the war. England 
needed someone to guide her ship of state. Whom 
could she have? Whom did she get? The little bare¬ 
foot boy saved by the cobbler—Lloyd George, the Pre¬ 
mier of Great Britain. 

No matter what may be your station in life, you can, 
in some way, use your influence, speak the word, lend 
a hand, so that others may do the things which you 
would like to do, for in helping others you are, by vir¬ 
tue of your partnership with them, participators in 
their success. 

And, it is my opinion, that the world is an orderly, 
logically constructed and operated planet; that the 
law of compensation rules over all and the person, 
who is able to bet his influence, kindness, love, sym¬ 
pathy or money so that someone may bask in the sun¬ 
shine of public favor, gets just as much satisfaction 
down deep in his heart as he who receives the world’s 
applause. 

The old cobbler, seeing the success and gifts for 
leadership in the boy he saved, I am sure, got as much 
real satisfaction as the great statesman himiself and he 


484 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


has all of this satisfaction without the harsh criticism, 
which, of necessity, is heaped upon the man who be¬ 
comes a leader. Who knows but that the Premier 
himself would be just as happy living in humble quar¬ 
ters with his uncle as where he now resides with the 
great responsibility which the world has put upon his 
shoulders. 

I have recently talked with a man whose brain is a 
latent storehouse of musical genius and who at the age 
of thirty-six—a plain, dull painter and paper hanger— 
uncovered, by accident, this vein of pent-up energy. 
His happy songs are now being sung by thousands. 

One of the greatest factors for success in the modem 
business world is the ability to discover men and put 
them to work. 

Carnegie said that he built up the great steel in¬ 
dustry because he had enough brains to find men who 
could do things which he could not do. In betting on 
others Andrew Carnegie made himself. 

We punctuate our prayers with groans that the 
world may be saved and men brought to the feet of 
Christ; but if we do not try to answer our prayers by 
bringing men in, as Philip did, what doth it avail a 
man to pray at the altar of the Cross? 

Do you think that you have no talent, no genial 
way of approach, that you are slow of speech and not 
altogether lovely and that you cannot lead anyone into 
his or her own work; that you cannot bet on a living 
soul? Then remember this: 

In Warrington, England, a notice was posted in 
front of a church announcing that the Reverend Wil- 


LIFE’S GREATEST BET 


485 


liam Robey would speak on foreign missions. A young 
man, by the name of Robert Moffitt, was attracted by 
this announcement, but the Reverend William Robey’s 
speech had been delivered a day or two before. He 
was too late. Robert Moffitt was in another town when 
he saw the second announcement of the minister’s 
speech and this time Moffitt went in. He listened with 
intense rapture and there made his life’s decision. He 
went out from that meeting determined to be a mis¬ 
sionary of the Cross to the peoples in foreign lands) 
and Robert Moffitt became one of the great Chris¬ 
tian missionaries. 

It is my opinion that the sexton of that church and 
the woman who put in her widow’s mite from time 
to time, to help support that institution, so that the 
Reverend William Robey could deliver his speech there 
and Robert Moffitt could hear the address, were just 
as great souls and will have just as much of praise and 
honor, through the law of compensation—either here 
or elsewhere—as, perchance, the rich mian who was 
able to subscribe in a more abundant way to the sup¬ 
port of that institution. The sexton and the washer¬ 
woman and the rich man were all partners, working 
together for the salvation of the race. 

All of Christendom, fifteen or twenty years ago was 
stirred and stimulated by the Great Men and Religion 
Forward Movement. It was an effort on the part of 
the men in the church to bring the great gospel message 
before the masses in a larger way. The movement 
succeeded. It performed its service and thousands 
were helped. 


486 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


The man who headed this movement was a wild, 
reckless fellow whose loose manner of life was killing 
his mother. She was wearing her life away because 
of the waywardness of her son. He was on the train 
one day and, as was his custom, playing cards, wasting 
'his time. A stranger came by who did not know the 
young fellow but who had a message and whose heart 
was warm and whose ambition was fired for service. 
In passing the young man—a stranger—he put his 
hand upon his shoulder and said: “Young man, why 
don’t you live the way that you want to die?” This 
young man had been raised in an orthodox home, he 
understood life from the old-fashioned evangelistic 
point of view and, when the stranger said, “Why don’t 
you live the way that you want to die” it struck a 
responsive chord in 'his bosom. 

He continued to play his “unholy game” but not 
wfith the same interest as before. “Why don’t you live 
the way that you want to die” kept ringing in his ears. 
This message burned its way into his consciousness. 
Finally he pushed the cards aside and quit the game. 
When he reached the little town' he got off the train, 
gave his grip to the porter, while “Why don’t you live 
the way that you want to die” still rang in his ears. 
As he went up the street, “Why don’t you live the way 
that you want to die” kept resounding in his brain. 

He went to the hotel register to write his name and 
began to write “Why don’t you live the way that you 
want to die. ’ ’ This haunted him until he went upstairs 
to his room in the hotel; there his mind went back to his 
mother, back to the Christian home in which he had 


LIFE’S GREATEST BET 


487 


been raised, back to the old-fashioned type of revival 
conversion and he decided that what he needed was to 
be converted. “Why don’t yon live the way that yon 
want to die” finally had its effect. Fred B. Smith fell 
down on his knees and cried ont in the good old-fash¬ 
ioned way, “Oh, Lord, I can’t endnre this any more, I 
surrender. ’ ’ 

That moment, of course, there came a great peace 
and satisfaction to his mind, for what to the orthodox 
is conversion is really a psychological reaction of the 
mind. Something comes into our mind by force of early 
teaching, reading or theological discussions or “gospel 
preaching” and we think there is only one way to be 
saved; there is only one way to get into heaven and 
that is by the way of conversion as particular preachers 
have expounded. This preys upon our minds until we 
catch the psychological suggestion that the only way 
we can be happy is the way that has been suggested to 
us, namely, in complete “surrender.” 

This attitude of the mind has produced an anxious 
state which probably never will be overcome until we 
do “surrender.” The tension under which our mind 
has worked for goodness knows how long so the moment 
we decide to change our mind or to take the step of 
“surrender” that moment there comes the reaction, a 
psychological change, and peace ensues. 

The author has taken up this angle of conversion at 
great length elsewhere in his works. 

To Fred B. Smith it was real, just as real as it has 
been to thousands of others and Fred B. Smith was a 
changed man when this new experience came into his 


488 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


life and was just as enthusiastic and determined to 
spend his energy in future for the gospel as he had been 
to spend it in a reckless way. Fred B. Smith and the 
Men and Religion Forward Movement were given to 
the world because an unknown man put his hand upon 
the shoulder of a young card player and bet his words 
and his influence upon him. 

If God could use the harlot Rahab to shield the two 
spies whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho, in the days 
of old, surely He would not despise the woman or man 
who has sinned and in repentance would bring some one 
to Him, even as the woman at the well of Samaria would 
bring her town’s folk to Christ. 

Psychology teaches us that there is nothing to fear 
from our actions in the past. 

When the bats and lizzards of lust inhabit the heart, 
it takes the power of God’s love to drive them out, and 
Applied Psychology teaches us the scientific way. 

If you have ever been knocked down by circumstances 
to a dead level, make another effort to become a living 
perpendicular, and then help some one else. 

When we consider, the shortness of life and what 
little time we have to let our influence be felt, it be¬ 
hooves us to take time to improve every opportunity in 
every way possible to place our bet upon human lives. 

It takes so many years for a man to prepare to do 
the little that he is able to do. The more he accom¬ 
plishes, the more he sees what he could do, if life were 
longer and the more he sees how the world needs all 
the help and succor that he is able to lend. 


LIFE’S GREATEST BET 


489 


Here on this earth plane man’s journey is like the 
passing of the bird through the air, parted this minute 
and closed the next. 

When we reflect that our days are swifter than a 
weaver’s shuttle and we chafe that the brevity of life 
may cut us down long before we see the result of our 
efforts, then there is consolation in the thought that we 
have brought into his or her own, someone who will go 
on doing the things that we should like to do if our 
life’s span were a thousand years instead of three score 
years and ten. 

For a thousand years in Thy sight are as but yester¬ 
day, seeing that they pass as a watch in the night. 

You may not be able to recommend a man for the 
Presidency, as Bryan did Wilson, but, as a teacher, 
church worker, friend, or good Samaritan, you may be 
the means of making a man who can fill such a position 
as the cobbler made Lloyd George. Your name may not 
be heard from here to China, but, if you can make a 
Lloyd George, you have contributed to the advance¬ 
ment of the human race, and who would want more. 

In the country where I grew up it was a custom 
among the boys to raise one hand and move the first 
two fingers as an indication to the other boys that they 
were going swimming. To raise your hand, wiggle your 
fingers and to say, “come on for a swim” emphasized 
the glorious dip in the water just ahead. 

A little boy who had disobeyed his mother, had been 
dressed in his Sunday-go-to-meeting white pants, put 
in the front yard and commanded not to leave. He was 
warned that if he did his mother would meet him in the 


490 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


kitchen when he came home with a strap that hung be¬ 
hind the stove! 

I don’t know how it is about a little girl during 
week days; she may like to be dressed in her Sunday- 
go-to-meeting dress and enjoy staying in the front yard 
or spending most of her time sitting in the porch with¬ 
out going out to play with other children but, speaking 
for boys, it isn’t the most judicious thing you can do to 
dress them up in white pants in the middle of the week, 
stick them on the front porch and tell them to stay 
there; especially if it be in the middle of the swimming 
season when other boys are passing that way and call¬ 
ing, “come on for a swim.” 

There are other things that a real, live, wide-awake, 
honest to goodness, wiggling boy would rather do in 
the middle of the week than be confined as punishment 
in the front yard or porch, dressed in his Sunday-go- 
to-meeting outfit. 

The little boy was sitting on the porch, his chin rest¬ 
ing in both hands, thinking what a dull and listless 
world this place of human endeavor is when, round the 
corner came one of his playmates, who raised his hand, 
wiggled his fingers and shouted, “come on for a swim.” 
The boy started to rise, got about half way up when he 
turned around and looked toward the kitchen and 
thought of the strap and the strong arm that would be 
attached thereto when he came home, so he sat down 
again, more gloomy than before, for the presence of his 
chum only emphasized the loneliness of the great wide 
world when t/here is no one near and all of the other 
“kids” are out a-swimming. 


LIFE’S GREATEST BET 


491 


While he was thus meditating, another chum swung 
around the corner, raised his hand, wiggled his fingers 
and shouted louder than the first chap, “come on for a 
swim.” Repetition is emphasis and, when the second 
boy shouted “come on for a swim” the little fellow rose 
up almost straight this time, when he once more thought 
of that kitchen and the strap. He looked around again 
and his imagination could feel the old familiar sting 
of that kitchen strap and once more he sat down more 
despondent than ever. 

Now you cannot tempt a real live boy too often. He’s 
a human just like his father before him; he can stand 
a certain amount of temptation and then—the strap. 

So, while holding his chin a little tighter in his two 
hands, his elbows resting upon his knees, a third boy 
swung round the corner, wiggled his fingers and 
shouted, “come on for a swim.” This time the little 
chap jumped up, ran down to the fence, put his hands 
upon the gate, turned round, gave one last glance to¬ 
ward the kitchen, then made a dash and down the street. 

When he reached home his mother’s hand and the 
strap reached him. As the mother grabbed him by the 
arms and began to reprimand him for leaving, the little 
fellow begged with all of the earnestness of a man plead¬ 
ing for his soul, not to be punished, but the mother had 
threatened and, sometimes when a mother threatens, she 
thinks she can’t be a true mother unless she lives up 
to her threat. So, as she shook the little boy with one 
hand and raised the strap with the other, she said, “I 
saw you when you ran down to the fence” (the victim 
in the meantime pleading for mercy), “I saw you put 


492 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


your hand upon the gate, I was in the front window 
and I saw you run away.” The little boy’s sobbing 
stopped and, as the tears run down his cheeks, he looked 
up in a pitiful way and, in a pleading voice, said to his 
mother: “Why, mama, if you saw me why didn’t you 
tap on the window and help me?” 

We come in daily contact with numbers of people 
who can be made and who can be saved and whose 
genius can be given to the world by the power of the 
spoken word. If we have not money with which we can 
help them, we, at least, have a mind of encouragement, 
kindness and love and can, at least, give utterance to 
our thoughts, by expression. These thoughts carry 
the power with them to save and build. 

This nation’s settlement and development is written 
in lines of graves across the Continent and the road 
which leads man from ignorance to intelligence is strewn 
with the bones of men who dared to advance a new idea 
and had the courage to put it into effect. 

It may be your part to support a dreamer, a seer, to 
put ion your pay-roll a reformer who is so far ahead 
of the rank and file in thought and progress, that the 
masses of people may think him as far wrong as the 
world judged Columbus to be. 

I’d rather be living in the next ten years than during 
any other decade of the world’s history. 

To lead a soul to his goal (and to Christ) in such 
an age is a privilege freighted with most wonderful 
potentialities—potentialities that if we could read the 
future, would make Aladdin’s lamp seem a miniature 
fairy tale. 


LIFE’S GREATEST BET 


493 


You may be but a candle bearer burning incense at 
the altar of Progress, yet by so doing may win a soul 
who will carry the banner of progress to the very gates 
of mankind’s haven. 

The Ishmaelitish method of every man’s hand against 
every other man, instead of every man lending a help¬ 
ing hand to every outstretched palm, is the method 
which would not prevail if men in every generation did 
bring—as Andrew did—their brothers to Christ and 
men gave helping hands to struggling humanity. 

An uncle led Newton into the world of applied 
science. 

George Cohan leads discouraged ones to find them¬ 
selves. 

A duke led Handel to the musicians’ court. 

Count Esterhazy led Haydn to fame and glory. 

A rich merchant led Verdi to become the richest of 
all composers. 

Carnegie led many men into great financial prosperity. 

But the greatest is to be a Gunsaulus who finds an 
Armour, and an Armour who finds Gunsaulus, both 
leading men and women to the court of learning and 
self-culture. 

The greatest bet that you can make is the bet placed 
on men and women in word, deed, money or love. 

John B. Gough was recognized as the greatest lec¬ 
turer of his generation. He was a printer by trade, but 
spent most of his spare time in saloons, where he was 
found to be a most pleasing entertainer. He early found 
that it was easier to get his drinks by telling stories and 
singing than by working. This led to great excess in 


494 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


drinking until he became a confirmed drunkard. He 
had had delirium tremens once and had reached that 
stage where he could no longer keep a job. His wife 
had died, according to his own confession, from a broken 
heart, because of his reckless drinking, and all of the 
burdens of sorrow and poverty which that entailed. 

He had, by dissipation and carelessness, finally 
gravitated as far toward the drunkard’s gutter as a 
man could go; bereft of his wife, deserted by friends, 
unable to make acquaintances, the outcast drunkard was 
thinking only how to end it all, when Joel Stratton, a 
waiter, met the drunkard and accosted him by saying: 
“Mr. Gough, I believe.” No one had spoken to Gough 
with the prefix “Mister” for such a long time that it 
startled him. He had been only “Gough, the drunk¬ 
ard. ’ 9 He was able to reply, “Yes, my name is Gough. 9 ’ 
Mr. Stratton said, “I just wanted to tell you, Mr. 
Gough, that I am a friend of yours and I want the 
privilege of helping to get a job for you and get you 
back into society.” 

The drunkard assured him that it was useless, that 
•there was a time when he could have responded to such 
words of kindness and encouragement, but it was too 
late now. But Mr. Stratton was persistent. “No, Mr. 
Gough, it’s not too late; we are going to have a tem¬ 
perance meeting tonight, and I want you to come; 
here is the address, and sign the teetotaler’s pledge.” 

At first, Gough said this was impossible; if he were to 
sign the pledge he would not be able to keep it, for he 
had been a drunkard so long he lacked enough self- 
control to keep the pledge; but Mr. Stratton was not to 


LIFE’S GREATEST BET 


495 


be put off so easily. He had the great desire to be of 
service to this man in whom no one saw anything but 
broken hopes, a shattered life and a drunkard’s grave. 
Mr. Stratton was so gentle and kind in his persuasion 
that Gough finally consented to attend the meeting and, 
if it was “the last thing he did in life,” he would sign 
the pledge. 

He went to the meeting that night and, when the 
address was over, wrapped his ragged overcoat around 
his more ragged clothes beneath, went forward and, 
with trembling fingers, signed—John B. Gough. 

The next day he went down to work in the print shop. 
It had been his custom to go out for a drink or two, 
within an hour or so after he began work. The time 
came for his accustomed drink. His tliroat was parched; 
his will weak; his whole being aflame with the craving 
for whiskey. He endured this for some time until, as 
he says, he felt that there was a flame of fire from his 
stomach to his mouth. 

He had signed the pledge and now came the great 
test. He felt that probably something or someone could 
help save him, so hoping to get some word of encour¬ 
agement that might help allay his physical torture, he 
went in to his employer and said, “Sir, I signed the 
pledge last night,” to which his employer replied “Oh, 
you did, did you? Well, it won’t do any good.” Poor 
Gough was dumbfounded. Instead of giving encourage¬ 
ment the “boss” was adding coals of torture to his 
burning brain. 

Gough turned slowly around and went back to the 
workshop. As he picked up a bar of iron he felt it 


496 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


begin to move and wiggle in his hand. He knew what 
that meant. He had had the delirium tremens once be¬ 
fore and he realized what was coming now. Like a hot 
iron he dropped this imaginary moving bar where it 
wiggled in the shape of a snake, on the floor, rattling the 
papers, adding hideous noise to the already hideous 
sight of a poisonous reptile. It suddenly made its coil, 
turned its head toward the wretched man and started 
to run out its fangs. Gough’s reason began to totter, 
when, just then, in came a Good Samaritan. 

It was a lawyer who had been out the night before, 
had seen Gough sign the pledge and dropped in on his 
way down to the office to give the poor drunkard a bit 
of encouragement, so he very cheerfully said, “Good 
morning, Mr. Gough, I just dropped in to tell you that 
I was mighty glad to see you take your stand last night 
for the new life and, I want to tell you, if you ever 
need a friend, here is my card, I shall be very glad to 
have you call on me at any time. I shall do everything 
in my power to help you in more ways than one. I am 
at your service whenever you command me.” 

This brought Gough back to consciousness. The 
snake disappeared. The bar of iron remained the bar of 
iron, though poor Gough remained a burning furnace 
all day as he went about his work. He had taken the 
pledge, “by the help of God he never would drink 
again, ’ ’ but, to stop all drinking suddenly, when he had 
had such a habit formed and had been in the custom of 
consuming so much “fire-water”: it was almost more 
than human flesh could endure. The flames kept dart¬ 
ing from his stomach to his mouth and back again all 


LIFE’S GREATEST BET 


497 


day. His brain became inflamed; it seemed ever to 
burn but not be consumed. His mind was stimulated 
to feverish activity until the poor man did not know 
whether he was working, whether he was drowning or 
whether he was burning. 

In this condition, he made his way that night to his 
humble quarters, back to his drunkard’s den which had 
been wifeless since the death of his companion, whom 
he had virtually killed because of his irregular living— 
back to the place where not a soul called him father, 
son, husband or friend. 

As the shades of night began to envelop the drunk¬ 
ard’s hovel the imps of darkness began to appear. The 
delirium tremens had come back! Delirium tremens 
and Gough, alone. Many a man who has had delirium 
tremens has been saved from the madhouse by having 
companionship during his agony, but Gough had to save 
himself from the madhouse, and alone! 

The room would become densely dark and then 
hideous red faces of all sorts of imps and exaggerated 
animals would appear around the walls of the room, 
each one making an effort to kill and devour him. Next 
the room would change from black to green with a 
simultaneous change of hideous features. His hand 
seemed to be cut into a thousand ribbons and, as he 
tried to force the strings of flesh back into the palms 
of his hands, they seemed each time to be larger in 
form and larger in number, each ribbon of flesh having 
its particular suffering and agony. Finally, after vainly 
trying to get his hand back to its normal shape, the 


498 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


room would again change its colors and conditions, and 
imps would again tramp in, one after another, dressed 
like the proverbial devil, with the horns and the long 
tail, with the pitchfolks in their hands ready to run him 
through. With superhuman effort he would try to beat 
off the imps, one at a time. Then all would lunge upon 
him together and when he was overcome, again the 
scene would change and he would be in the middle of a 
bed of snakes and reptiles, hideous, poisonous and mon¬ 
strous and, with all of the effort he had, he could not 
keep the reptiles from winding themselves around his 
legs, his torso. Then they would gradually come up tio 
his neck, the biggest one roping itself around his throat, 
choking him almost to death, when, again with abnormal 
stimulation, he would grab the snake, squeeze it with 
superhuman demon force, it let go its grasp and slowly 
unwound from his body, when he would whirl it round, 
throw it through the air, dash it upon the floor, stamp 
upon its head and cry out in delirious, hilarious, demo¬ 
niac chuckles of triumph; but his triumph wouldn’t last, 
for the scene would change again. More snakes, more 
monstrous, more poisonous, more hideous than before 
would swarm round him, taxing his strength to ward 
them off. As he pulled one off from one leg, another 
would wrap tighter around the other leg and, while he 
was engaged in extricating himself from the grasp of 
that snake, another one would be winding itself around 
his chest,. So the same continued for seven days and 
seven nights and Gough all alone, fighting the battle by 
himself. During this time no food had passed his mouth 
and (little water; but Gough’s great battle had been 


LIFE’S GREATEST BET 


499 


won. Yet others were to follow, but this, was 'his 
hardest. 

His wonderful native talent now was used, not for 
getting drinks in the saloons, but to tell others the won¬ 
derful benefits which would accrue from signing the tee¬ 
totaler’s pledge. So he went .about lecturing, first in 
small towns, then in larger, until his reputation spread 
and the reputation became fame and, in a short time, 
John B. Gough was the most famous lecturer of his day. 

He aroused two continents to the great cause of tem¬ 
perance and was one of the first to usher into the United 
States of America what will soon be ushered into every 
country in the world, abstinence from intoxicating 
liquors. He got two hundred fifteen thousand, one 
hundred sixty-nine signers to the pledge, thus bringing 
peace, joy and happiness to many thousands of human 
beings. This, in turn, of course, brought him wealth as 
well as fame. 

After he became world-famous and had returned from 
a trip to England, someone told him that his old friend, 
Joel Stratton, was sick in Boston and not expected to 
live. Gough hurried to the Hub City. He entered the 
room in which was Joel Stratton, the waiter, his saviour. 
Stratton’s disease was of a nature which prevented him 
from lying down. He had to be propped up in a sitting 
posture. Gough ran in and threw his arms around Strat¬ 
ton and said: “Oh, Mr. Stratton, the world is thanking 
God that you ever lived,” to which Stratton replied, 
“Do you think so?” “I know so,” Gough replied. 
“I get hundreds of letters from all over the world, 
sending love to you and thanking God that you ever 


500 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


lived and here is a packet that I have just received 
from England. The good people of England have sent 
their love to Joel Stratton/’ Then the man who had 
gone out of his way to touch the shoulder of an outcast 
drunkard to pledge him eternal friendship, said to the 
great speaker: “When I touched you on the shoulder 
that day, Mr. Gough, I never dreamed it was going to 
turn out like this, did you?” “No,” said Gough, “but 
thank God it has.” 

A chord had been touched by the waiter in the heart 
of the outcast drunkard, which had vibrated to the tone 
of love. 

I wonder if your opinion is the same as mine. Of 
course, we recognize the greatness of Gough and we see 
the genius of other men and yet, in the sight of omni¬ 
potent Power, there can be no differentiation between 
the greatness of the soul of the genius and the soul of 
the obscure waiter who has become immortal by touch¬ 
ing an outcast drunkard on the shoulder and pledging 
him friendship. In my opinion Stratton was just as 
great a man, as God views greatness, as the great 
orator himself. In fact, where would the orator have 
been, had not a greater soul touched him with the living 
fire of a kindly word. 

We may not be the particular kind of a person who 
gets the world’s applause or whose name appears in the 
headlines upon the front page of the newspapers; we 
may not have our name shouted from the housetops or 
megaphoned from the street corners but, in the eternal 
equation of God’s law of compensation, the person who 
says the word or who does the deed; who gives the lift 


LIFE’S GREATEST BET 


501 


to help some diamond in the rough to become great 
and famous, is not only just as great a soul but, in the 
great assize of Omnipotence, will have as much honor, 
glory and reward. 

The one who bets upon a fellow human always wins 
the bet and, when the bet is won, there can be no dif¬ 
ference in the qualities of the souls of the bettor or the 
winner. 

The power of the spoken word, the power of right 
action, of right thinking, of the right mental attitude 
toward others, of the encouragement rendered, the kind¬ 
ness offered and the love extended, is so far-reaching 
in its influence, that man can no more compute the out¬ 
come, than can he travel to Mars in snowshoes. It, 
therefore, remains for each one of us to place our bet 
upon lives of others in deed and words, leaving it to the 
law to bring to ourselves the compensation and reward 
for the bet placed, for the satisfaction and gratification 
of the bet won, knowing that "inasmuch as Ye have 
done it unto the least of these my brethren, Ye have 
done it unto Me.” 


502 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


CHAPTER XXIV 


SMILE—SMILE—SMILE 


Thought is everything; thought controls the body. 
A person may be perfectly relaxed and calm when some¬ 
one may tell a funny story, changing soberness into 
laughter. Thought controls the muscles of your body. 
Should your sympathy be excited and you cry—thought 
controls the glands of your body, or should you be¬ 
come very angry, the blood rushing to the cheeks demon¬ 
strates that thought controls the circulation. Thought 
is everything. The right kind of thinking, expressed in 
smiles and laughter, is one of the very best remedies for 
poverty and sickness and unhappiness that mortal man 
knows. Smile and change your conditions. A few 
hypodermics of smiles will cure your indigestion and a 
few other indigestible customs to which modern man 
has fallen heir. 

Ruskin says that we may be sure, whatever we are 
doing, that we cannot be pleasing God if we are not 
happy. 

Remember that laughter is a real and important 
remedy for illness—the greatest remedy for illness. 
The ablest medical authorities will tell you that laughter 
actually keeps off apoplexy and other troubles that come 
from excessive pressure on the blood vessels. The 
moment man laughs, pressure on the blood vessels is 
relaxed, and if a man w r ere thieatened with rupture of 




SMILE—SMILE—SMILE 


503 


any artery or vein, not all the doctors in the world 
conld do as much for him as hearty laughter. 

Remember also that laughter is vibration and that 
vibration destroys disease germs. 

There is a wonderful recreation in cheerfulness. The 
man who laughs often and heartily need have little 
fear of dissipation, insomnia or insanity. Those who 
laugh are not only, as a rule, healthy people, but they 
are also longer lived and more successful . They get rid 
of a thousand and one trifles which perplex and upset 
the nerves and make others disagreeable, morose and 
melancholy. 

Here’s the way many insane people are being brought 
back to normality. It’s called “do you belong?” It is 
a laughing lodge in insane hospitals. We now under¬ 
stand that a real hearty laugh not only prevents people 
from becoming insane, but restores many insane to nor¬ 
mal condition, so some insane hospitals teach patients 
to laugh and these patients, in turn, teach others. The 
initiation into this “do you belong” lodge is very 
simple. A man who “belongs” goes up to another in¬ 
sane man and begins to laugh, at the same time saying, 
“do you belong?” If the laughing man who says “do 
you belong?” can get a smile out of the other fellow, 
the other fellows then “belongs.” He is initiated, so 
to speak. 

These two crazy men start out for some other pros¬ 
pective member for their “do you belong?” lodge and 
these two men in turn stop another patient and begin 
to laugh. If the third patient, likewise, can crack a 
smile or get out a ripple of laughter, he, too, “belongs.” 


504 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


You have to smile or you have to laugh to join this “do 
you belong ?” organization. By getting patients to 
laugh many are restored. Laugh well and heartily and 
you will never became insane. 

Indeed, laughter is the beginning of love—but I’m 
not conducting a matrimonial bureau; this is a health 
and prosperity course. If man could not laugh, reason 
would wobble on 'her throne. 

To smile is as good as to pray. “Ergo”—smile. “The 
man worth while is the man who can smile when every¬ 
thing goes dead wrong.” 

Laughter is the great lubricant of life. 

“They laugh that win.”—Shakespeare. 

“Always laugh when you can; it is a cheap medicine.” 
—Byron. 

Henry W. Beecher once Said that laughter would yet 
become a legitimate feature in religion. 

Employees of the Boston opera house assert that 
Mme. Melis is the one singer whom they have always 
found cheerfully smiling, no matter what the difficulty. 
She says: 

“Were I to take to heart every disappointment and 
every unpleasantness and frown, I should soon become 
aged in looks. As it is, I smile when troubles come and 
it is wonderful how trouble disappears. I do not know 
what wrinkles mean and besides I have learned what 
true happiness is. So if I w r ere asked what is my 
advice to women who want to be beautiful, I should sim¬ 
ply say ‘Smile.’ ” 

“I have made quite a lot of progress in English,” 
says Mme. Melis, “and I attribute it also to my smile, 


SMILE—SMILE—SMILE 


505 


for were I unable to smile I could never have mastered 
the difficulties of the ‘w’ and ‘th.’ People think that 
it is good nature that produces this smile. I maintain 
that it is the smile that is responsible for a sunny dis¬ 
position. Who will deny that a sunny disposition is the 
best beauty doctor in the world V’ 

Man is the only animal that can laugh—who would 
want to be a jackass? 

Modern science teaches that laughter benefits the 
human organism in several ways. 

For one thing, and especially in the tender, forma¬ 
tive period of childhood, it acts as a device to relieve 
the mind of the strain of acquiring knowledge. It en¬ 
ables the mind, as it were, to take an occasional holiday. 

Also, and again especially in childhood, which is 
notably the period of rapid physical growth and of the 
accumulation of large stores of nervous energy, laugh¬ 
ter acts as a safety valve. It permits the escape of some 
of this energy, which might otherwise become a source 
of nervous strain. 

In adult life it is similarly valuable as a relief from 
strain, and particularly from the strain imposed upon 
us by the trials and complexities of modern life. 

Moreover, as every laugher knows, hearty laughter 
when not too prolonged, produces a distinct sense of 
physical exhilaration and well-being. 

It is as though it had set loose in us some force of 
a real tonic value. And such undoubtedly is its actual 
effect. 

There is more than a mere coincidence in the fact 
that the nations which laugh the heartiest are precisely 


506 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


the nations which have forged to the front in the de¬ 
velopment of civilization. 

Consequently laughter is deserving not of repression 
but of encouragement. Under nearly all circumstances 
it is a good thing for both the body and the mind. 

Yet there are some people who frown on laughter 
as “bad form.” At most, all they would permit is that 
pale, thin imitation of laughter known as a smile. 

They forget that to laugh is one of the fundamental 
instincts of the human race, and that, like all instincts, 
it has a highly useful function to perform 

If you are not a laugher yourself, do not pity or 
condemn the man who laughs. You should rather envy 
him and try to emulate him. 

And, if you are a parent, encourage your children in 
their spontaneous laughter. Don’t taboo it in them as 
“bad form.” 

“Let them laugh, and, laughing, grow to a sturdy 
manhood and womanhood.”—H. Addington Bruce. 

Dan Crawford, the famous missionary, says; ‘ ‘ When 
I first went to Africa, long before we were in sight of 
land, I saw the blue of the Atlantic muddied by a dirty 
brown, the Congo; so Africa dirties what comes in con¬ 
tact with it, for ‘out to Africa’ is really ‘down to 
Africa.’ There the tinned abominations—you call them 
canned goods—go bad, the dogs from Europe go bad 
and even missionaries go bad. The hard thing to do is 
to keep singing your song even when the heart is de¬ 
pressed, to keep your ‘heart fixed.’ Your people can’t 
do that here. I told a cabinet minister that the great 
difference between the England that I left and the 


SMILE—SMILE—SMILE 


507 


England to which I returned was that people have lost 
the art of smiling. The smile is the coat of arms of the 
soul, none that goes on four feet has it. I ask you what 
good it will do you in this materialistic age to gain the 
whole world and lose your smile ?” 

The best way in this world to get along is just to 
keep sweet and keep moving. There is always an open 
door to the fellow who smiles. When we go about with 
a frown on our face this busy, plodding old world of 
ours has business across the street. The secret why 
some people are always welcome is because they always 
have a smile to spare. They are always happy, and as 
welcome as blossoms in May. 4 ‘Laugh and the world 
laughs with you,” needs no commentary. 

Carlyle says: “No man who has once heartily and 
wholly laughed can be altogether and irreclaimably 
depraved.” An old Spanish proverb says, “The face 
that cannot smile is never good.” In selecting your 
employees or your life’s companion, your partner or 
business associate, you may save yourself many a day of 
trouble if you select the one who can smile. 

A noted physician has said that no other feeling works 
so much good to the human body as merriment. If peo¬ 
ple laughed well and heartily, ninety per cent of the 
doctors would go out of business. I know a minister 
who had been sick for a number of years. The doctors 
finally gave him up, telling him there was no chance 
for him to live. He didn’t like that kind of medical 
sentence, however, in fact, he wasn’t willing to accept 
the verdict of materia medica, so he went home to his 
wife and, instead of bemoaning the fact that the doctors 


508 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


had told him he had but a short time to live, began to 
bless the situation. He said: “My dear, do you know 
I believe I can cure myself. I have heard the adage, 
‘laugh and grow fat/ so why not laugh and become 
well?” So he began laughing, he took daily exercises 
in laughing (as we shall outline later). It was but a 
short time until the minister began to mend until now 
he is is well as anyone. 

Some hospitals employ men who laugh to bring merri¬ 
ment and laughter to the convalescing patients, because 
of the magic power in merriment and laughter. 

Perhaps it is done something like this: They engage 
a fat man—there seem to be more merry ripples of 
laughter in a fat man than in any other type. They 
engage a man to sit in a ward (where there are a num¬ 
ber of patients) and just laugh. Laughing is catching. 
The patients catch the laughter bug and the smile germ 
and, in turn, begin to laugh. Shortly there is change for 
the better. 

Imagine a nice fat man seated among a lot of con¬ 
valescing patients, starting a whole ocean of ripples of 
laughter. Laughter starts vibrations, vibrations begin 
to vibrate the fatty rotunda of the fat man; the wrin¬ 
kles around his mouth seem to stretch all the way down 
to his tummy and, as he laughs and vibrates his stomach, 
disease germs are killed off. Vibration destroys disease 
germs. The shaking rotunda smashes a million or two, 
sends out ripples of joyfulness which are caught by 
the patients, and, before the laughing is over, a few 
million disease germs have been killed by the merry 


SMILE—SMILE—SMILE 


509 


ripple of the fat man’s vibration punctuated by the 
laughter of the rest. 

I have given you some of the physiological benefits of 
the law of laughter, but that which is going to be worth 
more to the human race is the psychological under¬ 
standing of smiles and laughter. Just as thought con¬ 
trols the body, so will a happy mind prevent sickness and 
bring a host of friends and prosperity and abundance 
in its wake—if the law is not cross-circuited by some 
other mental attitude. It is, therefore, most necessary 
that we understand the psychological effects of merri¬ 
ment, joy and laughter. 

We should apply with smiles and laughter the mental 
thought of blessing; not only should we smile and laugh, 
but we should have in our heart and deeply imbedded 
in our consciousness, a part of our very soul to bless 
every situation which arises in our life. When we have 
learned this, we can turn a tragedy into a comedy over 
night. 

A hollow laugh without the corresponding mental con¬ 
dition back of it is a hollow laugh and that is about all, 
but if the laughter is supported by the right mental at¬ 
titude, there is nothing in the experience of man that 
does as much good as smiles and laughter. 

We, therefore, must learn to bless every evil word 
and action of those who would be our deadly enemies; 
we should learn to bless every bad situation. We should 
be able to bless every negative thought others may send 
to us and thus dispel it. We must learn to bless every 
condition and experience which comes into our life, no 


510 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


matter if today it seems a greater burden than we can 
bear. 

The blessing will turn the tide of misfortune or sor¬ 
row, grief or trouble every time. There are no excep¬ 
tions when the proper thought of blessing is pronounced 
over every ill wind that blows. The ill wind will be 
changed by the alchemy of blessing into a sunny 
zephyr; you’ll have abundance, joy and happiness. 

When Napoleon’s armies were tyrannically and mur¬ 
derously swinging back and forth over the continent, 
the people had (reached that stage of fright and fear 
at the mention of his name and approach of his armies, 
that ihany surrendered without ever making a fight. 
One Sunday morning in 1799, eighteen thousand of 
Napoleon’s best soldiery, under the generalship of 
Massena, appeared on the outskirts of the little town 
of Feldkirk on the Austrian border. 

Feldkirk was a little village of three thousand souls. 
It nestled at the foot of a little ridge. Upon this ridge, 
just above the village, came the eighteen thousand 
French soldiers. Most of the men of fighting age in the 
little village were off to war. There was no chance of the 
old men, women and children making any stand against 
Massena and his well-trained army. A hurried council 
of the town was called. Someone suggested that they 
take the keys of the city up to the general and beg for 
mercy. The priest who was present, did not agree with 
so disgraceful a surrender. He said, “This is Sunday; 
it is the hour for mass; let the church bells ring out and 
see what God will do. We have been counting upon the 
power of man, now let us rely upon the power of God. ’ ’ 


SMILE—SMILE—SMILE 


511 


It may have been a superstitious appeal for help to a 
personal God up in the heavens somewhere, but under¬ 
neath was the eternal psychological law, which will 
work just as well for the superstitious as for the 
scientific. 

The old priest’s appeal prevailed. Instead of taking 
the keys of the city up to the general, the church bells 
rang out, as was the custom. The religious habits of 
the people were deeply engraved in their consciousness, 
so, when the church bells rang, they made their accus¬ 
tomed ways to the church and, as Massena up on the 
ridge saw the people peacefully and quietly going to 
their church, he began to think: Surely that little town 
knew more than he knew about the approach of the 
enemy’s army or it never would be so peaceful and calm 
when he was there with the great army of Napoleon. 
So he called a hasty meeting of his staff. Others agreed 
with him that these people had heard of the maneuvers 
of their own army, which he was unacquainted with 
and which might bring destruction to him; in the night¬ 
time some kind of message must have reached these vil¬ 
lagers assuring them that support of their armies was 
near at hand or surely they would not be so peaceful 
and calm, he reasoned. 

Believing this, the great general ordered a hasty re¬ 
treat and lo, the army left. The village kept on the 
even tenor of its way because the people had blessed 
their dire situation. Every condition and situation of 
life can be changed just as easily and readily as did 
the people of Feldkirk change theirs. 


512 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


We should learn to bless every condition. We should 
begin talking of our comforts and our blessings; of the 
good things which surround us; of our friends, com¬ 
panions and positions, instead of dwelling upon the dark 
hours, the discomforts, unpleasantries, misfortunes or 
“ill-luck.” By dwelling upon dark hours, discomforts, 
unpleasantries, misfortunes and “ill-luck,” we shall, by 
the law of attraction, bring the very things into our 
lives which we want to prevent. 

During the Great War some Belgian soldiers had been 
trapped in a house by the Germans. It seemed only a 
matter of a short time until the Germans would capture 
them. In their extremity, they made their way to the 
attic. Just why, no one knows, any more than the in¬ 
stinct for self-preservation forced them as far away 
from the Germans as they could get. 

They had not been there long before the Germans 
surrounded the house; in a very few minutes they would 
be captured and God only knows what would follow. 
One of the Belgians said to the rest of the soldiers: 
“I’m not fit to lead you men in prayer, God knows 
that, but if there was ever a time we needed to pray it 
is now and, if you men will get down' on your knees, I ’ll 
try to lead with a few words while you try to pray. ’ ’ 

Down on their knees went the Belgian soldiers. At 
the same time the door was opened below. The heavy 
tread of the Germans was heard as they came to the 
second floor; then the door which led up to the attic 
opened and the positive tread of a German officer began 
to be heard, step after step, coming higher toward the 
Belgians trapped in the attic. 


SMILE—SMILE—SMILE 


513 


As the German officer reached the top of the stairs 
and saw these Belgians on their knees in prayer, the 
lust of the enemy left his heart and respect took its 
place. His heels came together with a snappy click, his 
hand went to attention and, saluting the praying Bel¬ 
gians, he wheeled about, went down the stairs, ordered 
his troops away and the Belgians were saved. 

When everything else fails, try blessing your situa¬ 
tion. Add to your smiles and to your laughter the 
spirit of gratitude, thanksgiving and blessing and see 
what happens. 

Garibaldi has been called by the Italians 4 ‘The Wash¬ 
ington of Italy”—“The Father of His Country.” He 
believed that no one could ever harm him; that he 
never would be killed by the enemy. 

He had been captured by the enemy on different occa¬ 
sions but his wit and his laughter had saved him each 
time. He had a most happy faculty of blessing his 
conditions until he was able to persuade the enemy by 
his merriment and faith in the protection afforded him 
by the gods that be. He had a superstitious belief that 
the prayers of his mother saved him in every situation. 
It was purely psychological. It was his belief within 
himself of the saving power of the prayers of his mother 
which actually did save him, for, when his mother died, 
he lost his faith, thinking that she was no longer alive 
to pray for her boy. 

But while he entertained this faith and could bless 
and laugh at every condition of life he was safe. 

The enemy finally captured Garabaldi and, this time, 
were so bent upon his destruction that they put a special 


514 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


guard of trained soldiery around the guardhouse to 
make sure that he would not escape; then sentenced 
him to be shot at sunrise. 

Just a little before break of day the soldiers took him 
out, formed a hollow square around him and began to 
march him to his place of doom. But he only laughed 
at them, saying: “Why, you can’t kill me, there is no 
use taking me to the place of execution, for I’ll be alive 
ten years from now.” 

As he talked to the soldiers on the way to his doom, 
he laughed. Of course, this had a psychological effect 
upon the officers and the soldiers. The idea that a man 
who was as much in their power as he, and who was 
about to be shot, should be so hilarious about the sit¬ 
uation, had such an effect upon the soldiers that the 
officers began to take cognizance of it. 

So, as he marched along, he continued to laugh and 
continued to assure them that the gun had not been 
made nor the bullet moulded that could kill him. The 
psychology of it continued to work so that, by the time 
they reached the place of execution, the soldiers held 
a council at which time one said, “this man’s life is 
charmed, he knows it but we don’t. He knows we 
can’t kill him; we don’t. We would better let him go 
instead of making fools of ourselves in the endeavor 
to shoot him.” So the order was given, and Gari¬ 
baldi went free when the pull of just one trigger would 
have ended his life. He had laughed himself into 
Safety. He had blessed his extremity and saved his life. 

This can be done as readily and as easily in the life 
of each individual as in that of Garibaldi. It is a mat- 


SMILE—SMILE—SMILE 


515 


ter of smiling, of laughing, but having mixed with our 
smiles and our laughter a mind of thanksgiving, grati¬ 
tude and blessing. 

During the armistice one of America’s foremost sur¬ 
geons, who was a major in a military hospital near New 
York, was asked if he intended to leave the army at 
once and resume his practice. 

The Major smiled and shook his head. “Let me tell 
you a story,” he said. “The other day there reached 
our hospital a contingent of wounded from France 
among whom I worked. On my round of the wards I 
came to a youngster whose leg was in a cast. I could 
see he was suffering agony in spite of the little, crooked 
brave smile with which he answered my questions. He 
said they had fixed him up at a base hospital in France, 
but that, all through the trip over, his leg had hurt him 
so that he couldn’t sleep. ‘It’s all right though,’ he 
said. ‘I guess I can stand it, and maybe in a few years 
the pain will wear away,’ then the helpless, awful look 
came into his eyes again, though his lips still kept their 
pitiful, crooked little smile. Get what I am telling you, 
now —he was contemplating years of torture and he 
smiled! I made up my mind to do everything I could 
for that boy and looked him over with minute care. I 
found that in the hurry and crowd in France his cast 
had been put on poorly and had twisted his poor leg 
around and held it there. To make sure of the job this 
time I did every bit of it myself—took off the old cast, 
fixed the wound, measured and adjusted the new one 
and saw him tucked up in his cot. The next morning, 
going through the ward, I stopped at his bed. He 


516 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


didn’t say a word as he looked at me—he just smiled 
and I tell you the difference between this smile and the 
one he had shown me yesterday brought a lump into my 
throat. I made up by mind right then and there that 
if I had been given the power to bring a smile like that 
to the face of even one of our boys there wasn’t money 
enough in the United States to make me quit my job 
until not one lad left •‘who needs me remains.” 

A wounded Scotch Highlander lay upon a cot in a 
London hospital, stroking a German spiked helmet. A 
nurse said to him, “I suppose you killed your man?” 
“No, indeed,” he replied, “it was like this: he lay on 
the field badly wounded and bleeding and I was in the 
same condition. I crawled to him and bound up his 
wounds; he did the same for me. I knew no German, 
and he knew no English; so I thanked him by just 
smiling. He thanked me by smiling back. By way of a 
token I handed him my cap, while he handed me his 
helmet. Then lying side by side we suffered together 
in silence till we were picked up by the ambulance 
squad. No, I didn’t kill any man.” 

If heaven is a place of ringing bells and smiling an¬ 
gels, then the bells of heaven sent out a merry peal and 
the angels smiled their best when this act was being 
staged upon the battlefield. 

The Greeks have 'a wonderful saying which it would 
he well if the rest of the world could adopt. When they 
meet one another on the street, instead of using that 
“awful” American expression, “How are you?” they 
say “Be glad.” If the whole world would use that 


SMILE—SMILE—SMILE 


517 


expression “be glad” for one year as a salutation we 
could change the mental attitude of civilization. 

But see what we have: We meet one another and 
we say, “How are you?” The very words themselves 
have the color of gloom, ill-health, ill-luck, ill—every¬ 
thing. You may start out in the morning feeling fresh 
and as though you might do a real day’s work but, by 
the time you get down to your work, if a hundred people 
have said “How are you?” you begin to wonder how 
you are; you begin to think if, after all, you are well. 
Your mind will begin to wonder if you are capable of 
meeting the opportunities of the day. “How are you?” 
“How are you?” will give the ordinary optimistic per¬ 
son the Monday blues before he gets half way down to 
his office. 

If you have time and somebody accosts you by saying 
“How are you?”, if you have any semblence of a 
“tummy” ache you will begin to tell all of your trou¬ 
bles right away and the more you tell your troubles the 
more your mind exaggerates them and the more horrible 
they become and the more terrible is life. 

Suppose you didn’t rest well last night. You get 
out on the wrong side of the bed in the morning, proba¬ 
bly things didn’t lie well in your stomach and with a 
dark-brown-tasty attitude you start for the street car. 
Suppose you make a lunge and you reach it and, as you 
come inside to grab a strap, you step on someone s toes. 
To step on another’s toes is bad enough, but suppose you 
step on his toes and with your blue Monday inflection 
in your voice, say “How are you?” You start an argu- 


518 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


ment right there which may not end to the best advan¬ 
tage for you. 

But suppose (just as a matter of supposing) that 
you did not sleep well last night, that you did get out 
on the wrong side of the bed this morning, that things 
didn’t lie very well in your stomach and suppose you 
did make a lunge for the street car and caught it, and 
suppose you did grab a strap and step on someone’s 
toes! Suppose now instead of saying “How are you?” 
as you jabbed your fellow passenger’s toes with the heels 
of your shoe, you say “Be glad.” He’ll look at you and 
smile, but say, “How are you?” he’ll frown and be 
ready to fight. 

The Icelander when he meets another Icelander, in¬ 
stead of saying, with the American-der, “How are 
you?” says “Be happy,” yet we send missionaries to 
Iceland to teach them the way of life. That may be all 
right, but if we teach ourselves to be happy we’d have 
more grace when we enter the land of the frozen North. 

No wonder the Irish have so much wit and hold the 
palm for being one of the greatest nations in the world, 
though not the largest, when the Irish have such a happy 
greeting as “The top of the marning to you.” Why, 
you couldn’t be a grouch fifteen minutes if half a dozen 
Irishmen met you one after another and shouted 
‘ * The top of the marning to you. ’ ’ Not only the words, 
but the color that you have to put into the words to say 
it, make you feel cheerful, optimistic and glad that 
you are alive, but say “How are you?” and the bottom 
drops out of everything. If you haven’t anything for 


SMILE—SMILE—SMILE 


519 


the bottom to drop out of perhaps you never will have 
if you continue to say ‘ ‘ How are you ? ’ ’ 

The Jews greeting of “Shalam,” means peace, which 
is a thousand times better than the American’s greeting, 
“How are you?” 

In the vestibule of a certain hospital, visitors see a 
card bearing this advice: “Never utter a discordant 
word while you are in this hospital. You should come 
here only for the purpose of helping. Keep your hin¬ 
dering sad looks for other places and if you can’t smile, 
don’t enter.” 

“If you can’t smile, don’t enter!” is good advice 
for other places than a hospital. How many sick people 
have been literally killed by some gloomy “Auntie 
Doleful” the records will not disclose, but it is safe to 
say, if you want to keep a world full of gloom, dis¬ 
couragement, failure and ill health, just forget to* smile 
and continue to talk “How are you?” 

When the face relaxes in a smile, the rest of the body 
does likewise. We twentieth century money-chasers and 
nerve rackets don’t take time to relax. We are all on a 
tension—no wonder the hospitals are increasing and the 
beds are full. We do not know how to relax. 

Laugh and be glad. Laugh and be happy. Laugh 
and be healthy. Laugh and be prosperous. Laugh at 
everything, whether everything goes wrong or not and 
when you get into your head that things are going 
wrong, that’s the best time in the world to laugh “at 
everything.” 

When the United Cigar Stores Company rented the 
first floor of the Flatiron building in New York City 


520 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


at such a high rent that it would stagger the imagination 
of a high financier, New Yorkers began to laugh. What 
a foolish thing, what a waste of money, what a bad in¬ 
vestment and so forth. The United Cigar Stores Com¬ 
pany, however, was equal to the occasion—it recognized 
the free advertising it was getting. It instructed its 
clerks to smile and to laugh at every joke that was made 
at their foolish venture, trying to sell cigars to pay the 
rent. 

Men would drop in to ask the clerks when they were 
going to take the cow-catcher in and pass all manner 
of slighting jests at the foolhardy move of the United 
Cigar Stores “tobacco flatiron.” The clerks, in turn, 
laughed as heartily as the customers and continued to 
laugh until all New York began to laugh. Meantime the 
contagion of the laughter, like a magnet, drew people 
into the Flatiron building to buy tobacco- and cigars 
until this has become one of the best paying shops of 
the great United Cigar Stores chain. 

Smile when everything goes wrong, when the world 
thinks you’re a nincompoop and your friends pass by 
on the other side of the street. 

When Loubet was elected, somewhat after the manner 
of a dark horse, as we express it in the States, to be 
President of the Republic of France he was most un¬ 
welcome. France didn’t want him. The French didn’t 
like the election and were ready to rebel politically, but 
when he came to Paris, Loubet stood up in his carriage 
and with the smile of a “sunny Jim,” bowed to the 
right and bowed to the 'left and smiled at the Parisians, 
smiled at the frowns of the populace, smiled at the dis- 


SMILE—SMILE—SMILE 


521 


contented electors, smiled and won their hearts. Loubet 
smiled himself into the good graces of his countrymen. 
Every condition, every situation, every experience can 
be turned from tragedy into comedy by the changing 
of our mental attitude—by smiles and by laughter, by 
blessings and thanksgiving. 

If there has been any kind of a thing that has had 
any more sneering smiles smiled at it than the Ford 
auto, we haven’t heard of it. We have had our stories 
about the Ford, our songs about the Ford and made a 
present to Ford of such a continuous free advertising 
campaign that Ford never pays anything to advertise 
the Ford. The more we laugh at it the better it sells. 
Laugh at yourself, laugh at your enemies, laugh at 
your misfortunes, laugh at your foolhardiness. Laugh 
at your blunders and leave the rest to the law. 

Fret and worry create a chemical action which pro¬ 
duces auto-poisoning. Smile and laugh and you create 
the antidote. 

Suppose you are blocked now, suppose that there is 
nothing ahead, so much the better, smile and go ahead. 

There is a Chinese proverb which says: “He who 
cannot smile ought not to keep a shop.” You’ll notice 
that the good business man never meets a customer with 
a frown. The customer is always right. Even if the 
customer is dead wrong, to the merchant he is always 
right. 

Every big department store has an official to listen 
to the complaints with the object of winning the dis¬ 
satisfied customer over to a state of satisfaction. A de¬ 
partment store in Washington has gone the rest of the 


522 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


business world one better. It employs a deaf woman 
as the head of the complaint department. The reason 
is obvious. An irritated, dissatisfied, disgruntled high- 
tempered customer comes in to “ clean up the place. ” 
He is directed to the complaint department. He faces 
a deaf woman, hut he doesn’t know she is deaf. He 
doesn’t know she doesn’t know what he is saying to her. 

As a complaint listener a deaf woman creates an ideal 
situation; asi the accuser gesticulates and ‘‘hollers,” 
waves his hands, tells her what he thinks of the house 
and threatens what he is going to do, she looks at him 
and just smiles. Every once in a while someone comes 
up behind her and puts a piece of paper on the desk in 
front of her. This piece of paper informs her of some 
of the complaints the customer is making. Of course, 
it doesn’t reproduce the same language and the woman, 
being deaf, doesn’t get the irritated tones of the dis¬ 
gruntled customer. 

After the customer has relieved himself considerable 
and takes on another round or two with the smiling deaf 
woman, he gets it all out of his system and when it is 
all out of his system and she doesn’t talk back, there 
isn’t any chance to continue the argument. He’s had 
it all his own way. She smiles at him and nods her 
head with approval, stroking his vanity with her smiles 
until his feathers, which have been extremely ruffled, 
are quite smoothed out. 

If you want to know a good way to succeed when the 
world is kicking you around and saying all manner of 
unkind things about you, it’s a good thing to have deaf 
ears and smile. 


SMILE—SMILE—SMILE 


523 


If you feel “down in the mouth,’’ remember Jonah 
and the whale; he came out all right. Smile and you 
will have as good a “come out” as Jonah. 

When I was a traveling salesman I always had a 
hunch when I was losing an order. If the sale was be¬ 
ginning to slip, I could feel it. Then I played a trick 
on the prospective buyer. It was a good trick, for I 
changed his mind and constrained him to buy my goods 
which he ought to have had. I got the order, which 
did me good, and we sold him the merchandise which his 
customers needed. When I felt that I was losing the 
order, it was, of course, a matter of mental attitude; 
at that instant I had to change my mind—and I had 
discovered that the smile inside of me without letting 
him know it was there, was the best way to do it. 
Thoughts are currents. Thoughts are disturbances in 
the ether which travel wireless paths. These thoughts 
produce like thoughts. They produce like thoughts in 
the mind of someone who may be a receiving station, so 
when I was losing my sale, I used to say to myself— 
the buyer didn’t know it, but he caught the spirit— 
“smile, you sucker, smile,” “smile, you sucker, smile,” 
and very, very often by changing my mind—my atti¬ 
tude—I changed that of the buyer. I blessed my situa¬ 
tion by smiling and got hisi order. Smile, you sucker, 
smile, and get more business. 

Laughter enriches the blood. Let’s get some rich 
blood. Laughter is as catching as the measles. Mirth 
and good fellowship are inseparable. Now we are go¬ 
ing to have some contagion that will enable you to kill 


524 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


so many disease germs that no deadly contagion can 
catch up with you. 

A group of American soldiers had concluded a most 
strenuous day’s march. Among these American soldiers 
was a Dutchman wearing khaki. He was as tired as the 
rest of the hoys, I surmise, but he didn’t go to sleep as 
quickly as the others. In fact all-were soon asleep ex¬ 
cept the Dutchman. They happened to be lodged in a 
deserted cabin where some skunks had made their abode 
and had left their tracks on the desert air. 

One after the other the soldiers dropped off and began 
to snore—all but the Dutchman. He couldn’t accom¬ 
modate himself to that skunk desert air track. It was 
something new to him. He couldn’t stand it. He would 
lie down, try to sleep, then sit up, look at those around 
him who were peacefully “sawing wood” and then lie 
down again, but it was no use. He seemed to be stifled. 
He’d raise himself up again, look at the sleeping soldiers, 
take a few whiffs of the air and then, again try to forget 
all in peaceful slumber, but it was in vain. His slumber 
couldn’t come and he wasn’t peaceful, so he finally sat 
straight up in bed, looked at those sleeping comrades 
of his and said : “Ach, Himmel, day sleeps und I vakes 
und I haf to schmel it all.” 

Did you ever put on a home talent play? Have you 
ever commandeered your good peaceful townspeople 
into trying their luck in tramping the histronic? 

A certain popular young man in his home town had 
been persuaded to take a very small part in a home 
talent play. He remonstrated time and time again, but 
the committee of ladies were so insistent with their 


SMILE—SMILE—SMILE 


525 


representations that the whole show depended upon his 
appearance, that he finally isuccumbed to their flattery 
and accepted “a bit.” (In stage parlance “a bit” is the 
smallest kind of a part anyone can be given. It usually 
consists of a line or two. It is just what the word in¬ 
dicates, a bit.) This popular young man, who was as 
far from being an actor as a billy goat is from being a 
wart hog, was given this one line, “The queen has 
swooned.’ ’ 

The show was on, scene after scene was being enacted 
with all of the fervor and enthusiasm a bunch of ama¬ 
teurs usually musters. The blunders of the would-be 
actors, the faulty elocutionary attempts added to the 
glory of the occasion, which the friendly audience 
doubly appreciated. The play had swung with all of 
its ups and downs to the critical point where the popular 
young man was to enter, face the king upon his throne 
and cry out with the heat and fervor of an Edwin 
Booth, “The queen has swooned.” 

The young man heard this cue, but he didn’t go on. 
He was stage-struck. The cue was given again, but the 
amateur actor waited. He became more and more stage- 
struck. It was his turn to go on, but he couldn t go. 
His knees wouldn’t let him. He had wobbleitis of the 
knee caps, so to speak. Again the prompter gave him 
the cue to enter and again he didn’t enter until some¬ 
body gave him a push and, on he went, facing the audi¬ 
ence ; once there he was able to get himself only half 
way into the position which the elocution teacher had 


526 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


told him to take, as he blurted out, “The swoon has 
queened.” Needless to take your time to explain that 
the audience applauded. The young man at first thought 
he had won laurels. However, as the uproar continued 
and the applause grew louder, it dawned on him that 
perhaps the laurels which he thought he had gained 
were only milkweed, so he again faced the king, got one 
arm half way up as the elocution teacher had taught 
him to do and again tried to win title to his milkweed 
crown as he said, “The sween has cooned.” To say 
that the audience went wild is to put it gently; they 
roared, they stamped, you might say they stampeded. 
To say the audience was tickled to death would scarcely 
be exaggerating it. They were tickled nigh unto death, 
but not quite enough to die. They were able to appre¬ 
ciate what followed. Someone back from the wings, 
seeing that the popular young amateur was getting his 
foot further into his mouth each time he opened it, 
shouted so that the audience could hear, “Come off, 
you dog-gone fool, come off,” but the young man was 
not going to lose his milkweed crown that easily. He 
had taken too long a time learning that speech to be 
cheated out of his glory at the eleventh hour, not while 
the king was still on the stage anyway, nor while the 
audience would remain in the theater. So, once more, 
he got his eagle eye upon the crown of the king, once 
more he got that right hand into the position the elo¬ 
cution teacher had instructed, and once more he said 
his “bit” which was, to-wit, “The coon has sweened.” 


SMILE—SMILE—SMILE 


527 


“Mother, guess I’ll slip on my raincoat and go down 
to the post office. ’ ’ 

“Why, honey, it isn’t fit for a dog to be out. Let 
your father do it.” 


“How do you tell bad eggs?” queried the young 
housewife. 

“I never told any,” replied the fresh grocery clerk, 
“but if I had anything to tell a bad egg I’d break it 
gently.” 


“You seem to he flush.” 

“Yes; I gave my wife fifty dollars for Christmas and 
have just succeeded in coaxing it away from her.” 


A man, driving along a country road, saw the roof of 
a farm house ablaze. He gesticulated and called to the 
farmer’s wife, who was standing calmly in the door¬ 
way: “Hey, your house is afire!” 

“What?” 

“I say your house is afire!” 

“What did y’ say? I’m a little deaf.” 

“Your house is afire!” he yelled at the top of his 
lungs. 

“Is that all?” 

“It’s all I can think of just now. n 


“Now, Thomas,” said the foreman of the construction 
gang to a green hand who had just been put on the job, 
“keep your eyes open. When you see a train coming, 






528 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


thrown down your tools, jump off the track and run like 
blazes.” 

“Sure!” said Thomas, and began to swing his pick. 
In a few moments the Empire State express came whirl¬ 
ing along. Thomas threw down his pick and started up 
the track ahead of the train, as fast as he could run. 
The train overtook him and tossed him into a ditch. 
Badly shaken up, he was taken to the hospital, where 
the foreman visited him. 

“You blithering idiot,” said the foreman, “didn’t 
I tell you to get out of the road? Didn’t I tell you to 
take care and get out of the way? Why didn’t you run 
up the side of the hill?” 

“Up the soide of the hill is it, sor?” said Thomas 
through the bandages on his face. “Up the soide of the 
hill? Be the powers, I couldn’t bate it on the level, let 
alone runnin’ up-hill!” 


“Laughter is a token of saneness. Abnormal people 
seldom laugh. It is as natural to want to laugh and 
have a good time as it is to breathe. There is some¬ 
thing wrong with a person who seldom laughs. 

“I know a man who rarely smiles, who looks dis¬ 
gusted when he sees any one convulsed with laughter. 
He is cold blooded and selfish; he lacks tenderness, sen¬ 
sitiveness, delicacy, and, of course, is very unpopular. 

“There is a moral influence in things which amuse 
and make us enjoy life. No one was ever spoiled by 
good humor, but tens of thousands have been made bet¬ 
ter by it. Fun is as necessary a food as bread. 



SMILE—SMILE—SMILE 


529 


“Who can estimate the good that men like Mark 
Twain have done the world in helping to drive away 
care and gloom? 

“Dr. Hillis describes a man whose laughing muscles 
had been so paralyzed that his laugh had degenerated 
into a sepulchral chuckle that smote on the ears like 
a voice from the tomb. Everywhere we see people who 
seem to have lost the power to laugh heartily, or even 
smile. Their laughter muscles have been paralyzed 
from disuse so that they can only chuckle. They do not 
know the luxury of good, old-fashioned, side-shaking 
laughter and are unable to see the ludicrous side of 
anything. They look upon laughter as frivolous and 
inconsistent with the dead-in-earnest life. They regard 
life as a thing to be taken seriously. It is not a laugh¬ 
ing matter with them. It is too serious for frivolity. 

“If there is any one thing needed in this strenuous, 
nerve-goading age, more than another, it is optimism, 
cheerfulness, happy laughter—plenty of lubricant to 
keep life’s machinery well oiled. 

“ ‘There is very little success where there is little 
laughter,’ says Andrew Carnegie. The workman who 
rejoices in his work and laughs away his discomforts is 
the one who is sure to rise. 

“Many employers never smile during business hours 
and discourage anything which approaches hilarity 
among their employees, on the ground that it is undigni¬ 
fied, that it takes valuable time and demoralizes disci¬ 
pline. Nevertheless, some of them are being converted 
to Mr. Carnegie’s theory. They are beginning to find 
out that anything which gives temporary relief from 


530 


APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 


the strain and stress of business is beneficial, that a wave 
of laughter running through the factory acts like tonic, 
and tends to promote good work as well as good feeling. 

“Never suppress a tendency to laughter in those 
about you. They will be more healthy, more normal, 
more energetic, more enthusiastic in their work because 
of this great life tonic, this human lubricant.’’—Success 
Magazine. 


“Great and wise men have ever loved laughter,” says 
Elbert Hubbard, “the vain, the ignorant, the dishonest, 
the pretentious, alone have dreaded or despised it.” 

I am now going to give you the laughing exercise 
which, if practiced twenty minutes a day, will not only 
keep you from having insomnia, indigestion and becom¬ 
ing insane, but it will kill so many disease germs that 
it will bring health, happiness and prosperity to you. 
This laughing exercise is something that the great 
Ella Wheeler Wilcox practiced and recommended. It 
is something to be made a part of your daily living. 
You ought to take twenty minutes a day following in¬ 
structions as herein outlined, so we want you now to 
get ready to smile, to work your face (some people can 
work their faces better than others). 

Stand in front of a mirror (this will be easy for the 
ladies) and open your mouth as wide as you can. Open 
it until you can see your wisdom teeth—of course, this 
is just exercise. Take a deep breath and take five ha, 
ha, ha, ha, ha’s on one breath. Watch your face in the 
mirror with the mouth wide open and the grimace be- 



SMILE—SMILE—SMILE 


531 


ginning to play around your mouth. (When you see that 
awful face it will help the exercise some.) 

Now take ten ha, ha, ha, ha’s on one breath; then 
fifteen on one breath; then twenty on one breath. Then, 
taking your deep breath and your twenty ha, ha, ha’s, 
continue the ha, ha, ha, ha’s, until merry, spontaneous 
laughter rolls out. 

This exercise always works better if you can have 
someone practice with you. The more the merrier. 
The more you get to take part in the laughing exercise 
the more contagious it will become; the more disease 
germs you will kill and the more health, prosperity and 
happiness will be yours. Laugh and grow fat. Laugh 
and keep the doctor away. Laugh and be well. Laugh 
and be prosperous. Laugh and be happy. Laugh and 
live long. 


Power to Create and Achieve 


BOOKS THAT TELL YOU HOW TO WIN LIFE’S BATTLE— 
THAT HELP YOU RESHAPE YOUR DESTINY—THAT 
BUILD COURAGE — TEACH CONSTRUCTIVE 
THINKING —MOULD CHARACTER —HELP 
YOU BUILD MENTAL ACTIVITY—THAT 
TEACH YOU HOW TO CONQUER 
SELF AND OTHERS—KNOWL¬ 
EDGE THAT HELPS YOU 
DO MORE AND BE 
MORE. 


By DAVID V. BUSH 


MIND POWER PLUS 


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In this magazine you will find more special departments, 
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interest but also of extremely practical value. 

Mind Power Plus brings to you the latest and the best in 
all branches of applied psychology. It will help you solve 
your problems. It will be a constant companion, guide, inspi¬ 
ration, and source of comfort throughout the year. If you 
have taken any psychology, metaphysical, or mental science 
courses you will get more out of them by reading Mind Power 
Plus. If you have never taken such a course you will easily 
grasp every message in Mind Power Plus because all the 
articles are written in such a simple, interesting, popular way. 
You will be introduced to the most fascinating subject on 
earth—YOU. This magazine is dedicated to the purpose of 
helping YOU—to success, health, prosperity, and happiness. 
That is its mission. 

Mind Power Plus is a big 64-page monthly magazine that 
will help you "Know Self.” 


Per Year .$3.00 

Per Copy ... .35 








CHARACTER ANALYSIS 
HOW TO READ PEOPLE AT SIGHT 


By David Y. Basil, DJD.—W. Waugh, PhJ). 


Thousands of ambitious, well-meaning men and women are 
not reaching their goal of success in life for a lack of a 
definite knowledge of the differences in people. 

If these people only knew the principles of Character 
Analysis—how it enables one to read another quickly—they 
would lose no time in acquiring so important an asset. 

Business men lose customers; employees lose positions; 
husbands lose wives and wives husbands; friendships are 
broken; money is lost and mothers do not understand their 
own children, all for the lack of a proper understanding of 
each other’s temperaments. 

To be able to analyze another correctly has a definite cash 
value—it has given men wealth, influence and leadership— 
placed women in positions of social distinction and fame. 

To know how to read people at sight enables you to handle 
and manage others—gives you a power that will return you 
vast dividends in wealth, friends, and success. 

With the knowledge this book gives, you will be able to 
impress, convince, and persuade others—you will be able to 
adjust yourself to the various personalities you meet without 
creating friction or antagonism. 

An understanding of Character Analysis will permit parents 
to know the peculiarities and temperaments of their children 
and better enable them to govern and direct them. With 
such knowledge parents will be able to create an environ¬ 
ment conducive to the child’s benefit. The future work or 
profession of the children can be selected along lines for 
which they are best fitted to make a success. 

Teachers armed with an understanding of Character 
Analysis can intelligently direct their pupils—can handle 
them without friction—can better understand the character¬ 
istics of the child and direct them along the right path. 

Business men will be better able to select types that con¬ 
form to the job at hand and will better understand how to 
manage employes to get the best results. They will know how 
to meet different types of men and convince them. 

Salesmen will find a knowledge such as this the key to 
their success. To be able to know a prospective customer 
to understand his idiosyncrasy and temperament before 




attempting to sell him—to be able to work along a definite, 
well-defined plan suited to the man will assure more orders, 
friends, and earnings. 

Never before has such a comprehensive and thorough 
treatise on this science been written. You will be quick to 
see the practicality, simplicity, and thoroughness with which 
the authors have gone into this subject. Character Analysis 
is a practical guidebook to human nature. 

This book goes fully into the differences of the five types. 
It explains the differences, peculiarities, and characteristics 
of blonds and brunets. It covers the front face, profile, 
hands, skin, nose, eyes, ears, mouth, chin, the walk, voice, 
handshake, personal habits, expression, and hundreds of other 
points that have a direct bearing on Character. 

It contains eighty-four charts and pictures, each one a 
direct illustration of some feature bearing on a particular 
type. 

A brief outline follows below: 

Brain Anatomy. 

The Five Human Types—How they run true to form. 

Head Types—Forehead, front face, profiles, features. 

Color—Brunets and Blonds—Their peculiarities and char¬ 
acteristics. What you are and why you are. 

Hands—Not “palmistry” but biology. 

Flexibility—Its meaning. 

Texture—Thin skin, delicate or rough and what it means 
to you. 

Nose, Eyes, Ears, Mouth and Chin—Significance and ex¬ 
pression which show why you act as you do; why you are 
where you are and how to make the best of your talents; how 
to protect yourself from the wily, the “clever,” the dishonest 
and the pretender. 

Home and Marriage—Types that should and should not 
marry each other. 

Practical Parenthood. 

How you can make the most of your own type—Eliminating 
your weak points and how to build your strong points. 

In it you will find the latest discoveries in Psychology, 
Biology, and Pedagogy that pertain to this subject. 

Be sure to read this book. It will open your eyes to a 
new world of understanding and point out the way to a 
greater success, no matter what your ambition in life is. 

More than 432 pages, substantially bound in cloth—a regu¬ 
lar gold mine of knowledge and actual facts. 

Price, only 


$7.50 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY AND SEX LIFE 


Not 1 per cent of all married people actually understand 
or follow the proper sex relations. To 80 per cent of all 
married women the approaches of their husbands are repul¬ 
sive. Statistics show that 99 per cent of all divorces are 
the result of improper sex relations. Nearly 80 per cent of 
all female troubles are the result of malpractices and prac¬ 
tically every case of nervousness and hysteria is the direct 
result of the lack of sex gratification. 

In this wonderful book, “Practical Psychology and Sex 
Life”, Dr. Bush has fearlessly torn aside the curtains of 
prudery and revealed the scientific methods of copulation 
and reproduction. In plain, understandable English he 
teaches proper sex relationship—how, when, and where. 

It instructs a woman in dietetics and exercising during 
pregnancy; and tells her how, should she be past her meno¬ 
pause, she may become sexually active once more. 

With a stroke of the pen he severs the ties that bind us to 
the ignorant conventions of the past. The veil of silence 
is wrenched away and the happiness and harmony that come 
from righteous Sex Life are made understandable. 

This work is an epoch-maker in the history of Practical 
Psychology. Not alone in the realm of sex life, but in every 
other phase of psychology it stands pre-eminent. 

It discusses the Law of Vibration and how it works for 
business success and prosperity; it tells you how to raise the 
rate of your vibration for success, health, and happiness. It 
provides you with the means of overcoming fear and worry 
and instructs you in how to get what you want. 

It reveals the secret of staying young. It teaches the 
methods of scientific sleeping, scientific feeding, and scientific 
breathing; the education of the subconscious mind and how 
you may put it to work for your success; how you may save 
your children from immorality. 

It shows you how you may develop the powers of hetero¬ 
suggestion and become a healer; how constipation may be 
cured and surplus flesh reduced. 

It brings out the laws of scientific thinking, of spiritual 
communication and mental telepathy; it instructs you in 
scientific exercising and in developing the power of concen¬ 
tration and memory retention. 

The laws of Visualization, Abundance and Stimulation are 
made simple and understandable. The means of finding your 
appointed vocation and of following the road that leads to 
your success are laid down in the clearest, most compre¬ 
hensive fashion. 

“Practical Psychology and Sex Life, with seventy-two 
chapters, 800 pages, is a textbook for every man and woman 



who aspires to greater happiness, greater prosperity, greater 
success. It is the daily guide of thousands—it will work 
its wonders for you. 

Price .$25.00 


THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX—HOW TO MAKE LOVE 
AND MARRY—SEX HARMONY 


This work, a sequel to “Practical Psychology and Sex Life,” 
is an exhaustive study of the rules which work for happy mar¬ 
riages and sex harmony. 

It is a plain statement of scientific facts. It calls “a spade 
a spade.” It teaches each one of us how we may choose the 
mate who is suited to us and how by following the scientific 
laws of sexology we may achieve the supreme happiness of 
Life. 

It discusses the five planes on which a love-mate should be 
chosen. It tells how to discover whether another’s tempera¬ 
ment is suited to your own and how you may attain the maxi¬ 
mum enjoyment from his or her companionship. 

It instructs in methods which enable you to know those 
who are unfitted for marriage, either through disease or in¬ 
completeness. It teaches how to conduct a magnetic court¬ 
ship and win the one in all the world who can make you 
happy. 

It shows the rhythmic sex tides which are part of every 
woman’s life. It shows how to discover these periods and the 
rules which should govern a husband’s actions during them. 

It instructs in the mutual adjustment of sex relations— 
what to do if a man is sterile or a woman is barren; and how 
sex weakness can be cured and manhood restored without 
the use of a drop of medicine or drugs. 

It teaches frankly the science of copulation and perfect re¬ 
production. It instructs the man in his duties toward his 
wife during the important period of pregnancy. 

It brings out the most difficult thing in married life for the 
man and shows him plainly how he may overcome it. 

It is at once the most comprehensive and clearly written 
book ever produced on this subject. It is a book that should 
be the guide and foundation for every marriage—the rule of 
life for every married couple. 


In Cloth 


PRICE 


$3.00 






THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUCCESS 


You want to know how to get the maximum amount of 
success—this book will unlock the hidden treasure. 

You do not have to live in lack and limitation when there 
are natural laws to give you abundance, success, and happi¬ 
ness. 

This book makes plain the great laws for success, health, 

and abundance. 

You cannot fail to understand or operate those fundamental 
laws for your success, as Dr. Bush outlines them here. 

You will find it different from any other work ever written 
on Success. The culmination of over twenty years of 
research and study, it deals in simple language with the 
possibilities of every man—how you and every one else may 
rise from the slough of mediocrity to the pinnacle of wealth 
and fame. 

It teaches the great laws of success, health, and abundance. 

It teaches the simple, easy, everyday, workaday rules which 
will bring to you abundance—success—happiness—love. 

This book has been a guide-post which has steered many a 
traveler out of the ruts and mire of dismal struggle on to the 
smooth, oiled turnpike of a successful, happy, useful life. 

There is nothing mysterious, mystical, or supernatural in 
the elements of success and happiness. 

There is nothing in this book which the humblest among 
us cannot understand and yet it appeals to those who are 
versed in literature and science as well. In the simple 
everyday language of the people it tells in an interesting, 
fascinating way, the rules easily applicable to everyday life. 

PRICE 


In Uniform Red Cloth Binding.$2.50 

In Novelette Binding (leather). 3.50 


POEMS BY DATED Y. BUSH 


Poems of Achievement—poems that make the blood tingle 
with hope—poems that stir ambition’s flame and urge to 
action—poems that are human, that reach and rejuvenate the 
mind and soul—poems that sink deep into the subconscious 
mind and blossom forth again in real constructive work- 
such are the poems of David Y. Bush. 

No living writer of verse has such an understanding of 
the psychology of words to enthuse and encourage as does 
David V. Bush. 

If you feel dejected, downcast—if clouds loom black—if 
discouragement holds you back, read these poems. They will 







stiffen your backbone—put new life and energy in you—make 


you want to do and dare. 

Inspirational Poems— 

Red silk cloth binding, gold letters.$1.75 

Novelette fancy binding. 2.50 

Soul Poems and Love Lyrics— 

Red silk cloth binding, gold letters.$1.50 

Novelette fancy binding. 2.25 

Poems of Mastery and Love Verse— 

Red silk cloth binding, gold letters.$1.50 

Novelette fancy binding. 2.25 


THE UNIVERSALITY OF THE MASTER MIND 

This is one of the most masterful treatises on the relation of 
Practical Psychology to practical Christianity ever written, and is 
at the same time, a noble and inspiring study of the life of the 
Great Carpenter, whom Dr. Bush characterizes as the Master 
Mind of the Ages. To read this great book is to know the life of 
Jesus of Nazareth in a way no other writer has ever depicted it. 
The book is prophetic, daring and unrelenting in its insistence 
upon the acceptance of Christ and His teaching in the orthodox 
church as well as in the various new schools of Psychology, New 
Thought, Jewry and advanced thinking. “The Universality of the 
Master Mind” marks a new epoch in applying the common sense 
principles of Psychology to the daily practices of the organized 
churches of today. 

Price, paper binding.50c 


GRIT AND GUMPTION 

“The truths a man carries about with him are his tools.” So 
said Oliver Wendell Holmes, more than half a century ago. Dr. 
Bush has gathered from his own life and from an observation of the 
lives of others a vast quantity of truths—every one tested in the 
crucible of experience—each a marker and guide-stone to life’s 
achievement. 

Coupled with his original epigrams and suggestions he has 
delved deep into the lives of other successful men and women and 
dug out the actual WHY of their greatness and success. 

If because of the lack of Grit you have failed, this book points 
out to you the way to acquire Grit and make it help you over the 
rough place in life’s highway. 

If for the lack of Gumption your dreams have not come true, 
this book will help you overcome timidity and encourage you to 
greater effort. 

This is a book for red-blooded, “up and doing” men and women 
who have a well defined goal and want to reach it. 

It will help you turn failure into success because it shows you 
HOW OTHERS have done so. 

Should be in the hands of every man and woman who aspires 
to gain the better, bigger things in life. 

More than 125 pages, bound in stiff cardboard cover. Con¬ 


venient pocket size. 

Price, per copy, Paper.$0.50 

In Cloth . 1.00 

In Novelette .......... 1.25 














Stepping Stones 

to 

Success, Health, Happiness 

A Series of 25c Booklets that will 
Help You find Your Niche in Life 

By DAVID V. BUSH 


HOW TO DEMONSTRATE PROSPERITY—SELF ANALYSIS 

Most people fail to become prosperous because they lack a 
definite working plan. Dr. David V. Bush has prepared a simple 
chart so that you may analyze your failings and conquer them. 
With it you may demonstrate prosperity—it will point out your 
weak points and show the way to actual accomplishment. 

Whatever your walk in life—no matter how many failures 
you have had—no matter how discouraged and despondent you 
may feel—you need this self-analysis chart right now. Send 
for it today. Just 25 cents, money order or stamps. 


WHY SOME PEOPLE FAIL IN VISUALIZING —RULES FOR 

VISUALIZATION 

To visualize and concentrate successfully, certain definite 
principles underlying the laws that control the functions of the 
mind must be understood and applied. My experience in thou¬ 
sands of cases shows that failure is often due to the wrong ap¬ 
plication of these laws—to a misunderstanding of the mental 
processes necessary to focus properly the thought waves upon 
some definite desire and the urge of the conscious mind for too 
hasty action. 

The laws of visualization and concentration are well defined 
and when properly exercised are without limitation as to success, 
but to accomplish results one must understand and use these 

laws properly. 

You will more readily grasp the principle that governs the 
laws of visualization and concentration after reading this little 
booklet. 

In it Dr. David Bush has gone right down to bedrock—he 
thoroughly explains these necessary laws—he puts you right and 
shows you your mistakes—he starts you off on the right foot so 
that you may apply these laws for your benefit and profit. 

Dr. Bush believes, from his own vast experience, that more 
people fail on concentration and visualization than on any other 





operation of the laws of mind now being studied or applied, be¬ 
cause they only partly understand these laws. In this pamphlet 
he shows why the vast majority of people fail in visualizing. 
There are natural laws which are very often cross-circuited by 
well intentioned people trying to operate them for their good, 
all because they fail to understand the right way. You will un¬ 
derstand visualization after you read “Why Some People Fail in 
Visualizing. 

Send for this book today—you will understand this subject after 
readng it—you need it now—send 25 cents in stamps or coin. 


THE INFLUENCE OF SUGGESTION AND AUTO-SUGGESTION 

In this little booklet Dr. David V. Bush discusses Suggestion 
and Auto-suggestion from a different angle than that in “Prac¬ 
tical Psychology and Sex Life’' and “Applied Psychology and 
Scientific Living.” He takes the practical side of Suggestion and 
points out its value and usefulness. He explains the limitations 
of Suggestion and deals in a different way with the mental laws 
that control this powerful factor for your success. No matter 
what thought you have given to this interesting subject—no matter 
how much you have studied Suggestion, you will be surprised and 
delighted with the plain everyday way in which Dr. Bush explains 
this mental phenomena. 

This is a different angle of Suggestion than in either “Ap¬ 
plied Psychology and Scientific Living” or “Practical Psychology 
and Sex Life.” Also a different angle than has been printed in 
the fifty-cent series by the same author under “The Subconscious 
Mind.” This pamphlet not only deals differently with the law of 
Suggestion as mentioned above, but it is most entertaining, read¬ 
able and likeable from the practical side of suggestion. There 
will be stimulation, inspiration and mental cerebration in reading 
this pamphlet—“The Influence of Suggestion.” 

You will welcome this little booklet as a new avenue for in¬ 
creasing your knowledge of this fascinating study and you will 
acquire a newer and different understanding of its usefulness. 

By all means secure this little booklet without delay. Your 
copy is ready. Just 25 cents, coin or stamps, will start It by 
first mail. 


WHAT TO EAT 

Your capacity for constructive thinking Is in exact ratio to 
the kind of food you put into your stomach. Your physical being 
and cellular development is retarded or improved by the food you 
eat. Sickness is, in many instances, the result of wrong diet. 

What you eat determines your fitness to fight and conquer in 
life’s battles. 

“What to Eat” is a book that you must read. It shows you 
the value of eating right—it explains the cause of disease from 
wrong eating—it gives you the proper diet and explains why. 

Thousands of people not only eat too much, but eat the wrong 
kind of food in the wrong way and at the wrong time. 

To succeed—to have poise and courage—to be immune from 
sickness—to be strong and sturdy—to think fast and act quickly 
—to be married happily—consider your diet. 




When you read this book you will be able to choose a com¬ 
bined diet that will nourish your body and build mentality. 

All life is a battle for place—the fittest only survive—stop 
putting poison into your stomach—learn the secret of vigorous 

health and long life. 

Written by a dietitian of long experience in collaboration with 
Dr. Bush himself. 

You will want this book now. Only a limited number will be 
printed. Heavy cardboard cover—price only 25 cents per copy. 


SILENCE 

The power of Mind by right thinking to gain health, success 
and happiness has been proven in thousands of cases. 

Right thinking moulds character, makes happiness—restores 
lost health and rejuvenates the entire being. Only through the 
action of a passive mind—a mind free from turmoil and disorder 
—can we attune our positive elements to receive and act upon 
positive thoughts. 

In “Silence” Dr. Bush has opened the door of hope to every 
man and woman who is earnestly seeking a way to reharmonize 
themselves for success, health, and happiness. 

This little book explains fully the value of the Silence and 
tells you just how to enter the Silence for healing vibrations. 

It gives you the affirmations to use and tells you when and 
how to use them. 

This book will be a practical help and inspiration to you—it 
will help you attain many good things in life—it will show you 
how to restore good health to others and yourself. 

You must surely get it. Send for a copy now. 

Price by mail, 25 cents. 


WHAT IS GOD? 

What is your idea of God? Do you think of God as a gieat 
being, living above the clouds, handing out health and wealth to 
some, and death and damnation to others? Does your thought of 
God fill you with fear and gloom, or with joy and happiness. 

Read what David V. Bush, Doctor of Divinity, has to say of 
what God is. Dr. Bush will change your orthodox idea of a ter¬ 
rifying, death-dealing, penalizing God into the new concept of 
the Essence of All-Good, health, wealth, success, joy, strength 
power, abundance), and all else desirable. The author shows tha 
while God is the power that guides us aright, He leaves it to our 
own subconscious inner powers to penalize us when we do wrong. 

This author shows that we are part of the All-good, and 
therefore, we are part of God, and as such we have the power 

that He has. ..... 

There is comfort, wisdom and satisfaction in this little 
volume, and if you read it once, you will reread it many times 
for the joy and consolation which it gives. 


Price 


Blue paper cover, 32 pages 


,25c 





AFFIRMATIONS AND HOW TO USE THEM 

The importance of the principle of affirmation in bringing 
into manifestation any desired condition or thing is now recognized 
by nearly every one; by all Psychologists, all students of the 
Silence, by Scientific men and by almost all church members and 
non-church members. 

This new booklet on Affirmations and How to Use Them, by 
Dr. David V. Bush, is intended as a handbook for all who desire 
to use the principle of affirming in their daily lives, affirming 
health, success and happiness. This booklet contains affirmations 
for use in approximately one hundred conditions and situations, 
both general and specific. The affirmations given will be effective 
in practically any conceivable case. They cover the field of 
abundance, success, prosperity, happiness, love, business, and 
domestic inharmony and health, and they will also suggest to the 
user other affirmations to fit his own particular desires and 
requirements. There are specific affirmations for specific diseases', 
conditions, and difficulties. 

This little book is a gold mine for those who would apply the 
psychological law of affirmation and formula. By its use one can 
bring into his life anything he desires—health, wealth, position, 
power, place; by its use he can overcome any handicap, any 
obstacle, any disease, and win for himself his divine inheritance 
from God. 

Convenient size for pocket or handbag. 

Paper cover, 48 pages 

Price ..... 25c 


Special Offer 


Order 4 of the 25c booklets for $1.00 and we will send you 
FREE your choice of two of the following Wall Motto Poems, 
artistically printed on beautiful cardboard. Check your choice 
from this list. 

Pep; Charity; Old Glory; Think Right; Opportunity; Stick To 
It; The Real Success; Where God Is Found; Troubles That Never 
Came. 

Send all orders to 

DAVID V. BUSH, Publisher 

225 Nort!TMichigan"Blvd. Chicago,"!!!. 


































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